A cheap rehash of it's very successful predecessor that is but a shadow of what came before it

Another game bought in a Steam sale just because it was cheap. I hmmed and ahhed about this one for a while when it was on sale because it has a bit of a less solid reputation than the much lauded Fallout 3 that came before it. Some people said they enjoyed it more but a lot more said it was not as good. But then I eventually did buy it in that sale and I can say with certainty now that was a mistake.

This was made using the exact same engine so it looks and feels and behaves pretty much the exact same Fallout 3 did and also uses the same mechanics, menu systems, character building system, inventories, etc. It's all the same. The only differences are:

• Types of weapons (pretty much all small ballistic firearms and no energy weapons)
• The location (desert of Nevada as opposed to Washington D.C.)
• The story (you play a courier who narrowly survives an attempt on your life seeking revenge)

I don't know what it was about this game that rubbed me the wrong way because mechanically, it is identical to the awesome game that came before it but I just did not enjoy it at all. I did not care at all about this nameless courier or the fate of New Vegas. And it just felt like a chore going through all these events that I was uninterested in after enjoying Fallout 3 and all of it's missions so much. It may have been a bit of an uncanny valley situation where it was so similar to something that I liked a lot, but it was not that and one of the main aspects of what made the previous game great (the story) seemed so pointless and inconsequential in this one, it just turned me off.

If you enjoyed Fallout 3, by all means try this one but beware because it seems to be a bit of a Marmite game.

Another long neglected big name game that I finally got around to

This is a now 5 year old game that I wanted to play when it first came out, but as usual, it was sidetracked by other things. But I get to them all eventually and now it's the turn of Fallout.

There was a lot of hype surrounding this one having been told by many who had played it how awesome it is as well as knowing that it had won many game of the year awards from multiple sources as well as plenty of other awards so expectations were fairly high. Also, Liam Neeson is in it and that's always a good thing.

As many know, it's your basic kind of action RPG deal where you pick a class and some skills and then level up by killing lots of things and pour your experience points into the areas you want to specialise in. So you can be a murderer or a smooth talker or a hacker or a stealthy assassin. I poured all mine into assault rifles and health so I could take beatings and shoot things in the face. Theres also a cool targeting system where you can freeze time and pick an enemy and a piece of their body to hit which makes the combat easier to control.

The basic story is that you live in a underground vault because the world was destroyed in a nuclear war and everyone now lives in vaults and never leaves because the outside world is destroyed and irradiated. For some reason, all the in-vault propaganda and equipment and such has a very 1950' vibe to it, so right up until I started the game I was under the impression that it took place in an alternative 1950s timeline but apparently not. It is set in the future.... So people are born in the vault, live in the vault and die in the vault. But this turns out to not entirely true because your dad, Liam Neeson, leaves the vault suddenly and without explanation and it's up to you to chase him and find out what's going down.

Naturally you visit many places along the way and meet many people and there are multiple outcomes and methods to accomplish almost any goal depending on what kind of skills you have. You can talk your way into or out of situations, you can pick locks, you can kill people in your way, you can pay them and on and on. I tended to lean towards trying to talk my way into places because it can save a lot of ammo and supplies. But when that didn't work, I would go with all out murder. It's another game that it seems like you could play a dozen times and do it differently every time and I do enjoy having that kind of freedom and choice. But even with all the options, it feels like you rarely get stuck in a no win situation where you simply don't have the means to proceed and have to retreat. I feel this did happen a lot in earlier games like this such as the first 2 Deus Ex games and the first Hitman.

There is an enormous amount of equipment and weapons and items in the game and you will regularly get newer and better stuff so you'll have to be constantly checking inventory to see if you're using the best you have. Equipment and weapons also wear down and eventually break, but can be repaired with spare duplicates. But remarkably none of this feels like busy work and it was enjoyable to keep my inventory clean.

I also greatly enjoyed the story because it felt very personal at first, but then it does pan out revealing greater consequences and more parties but because it was all started by your dad (still the awesome Liam Neeson) it still feels personal and you want to carry on his work. And the endgame is totally epic.

I'm sure pretty much everyone has already played this, but I would strongly recommend it to anyone who has yet to do so because it's just lots of fun from start to finish wandering the irradiated wastelands in search of Liam Neeson dealing with waste-landers and shooting mutant jerks in the face. Unfortunately, I have been told from sources, that I missed out on finding a dog companion called "Dogmeat". He sounds like he would have been cool.

I did enjoy this a lot and I got the game of the year edition on Steam so I will be going back to play the DLC (of which there seems to be a lot) at a later date for sure. My only minor complaints are that there is a huge amount of walking before you can do much fast travel so it would have been nice to have a vehicle or if your dude could move a bit quicker.... Also, Liam Neeson kind of sounded like he was phoning in his part. But he's still cool. Also, you make what seems like should be a game long nemesis right at the start who I was expecting to be the end boss, but no. After the first 10 minutes you never see him again. Missed opportunity.

Benchmarking the system with some beautiful scenery rendered by the new Frostbite 3 engine

Here we have the latest long anticipated entry in the Battlefield series. Touting the latest and greatest Frostbite 3 engine developed by the awesome DICE. Although I'm sure the anticipation for most people was for the multiplayer. However, I do not give two shits about multiplayer but after hearing that this one had an actual campaign this time, I was keen to give it a go and see how it would run on my rig as it is touted to be a very visually impressive engine with beautiful vistas, great detail everywhere, super realistic character models and the series' signature feature, destructible environments including whole skyscrapers.

As you can see from the screenshot roll above, it is undoubtedly a very very pretty game. And it features a very realistically modelled Chalky White from Boardwalk Empire starring as the aptly named "Irish".

However, once you are beyond the eye candy, the game itself is a fairly standard FPS affair. The only differences from the usual formula are modifying loadouts of 2 normal weapons (pistols, rifles, etc) and 2 gadgets (mines, bombs, grenade launchers, RPGS, etc). You can also use a tactical scanner to mark and tag enemies and then send your team-mates after them. I haven't played a lot of the Battlefield games, but the do seem to err on the side of realism in the way that there is excessive weapons wobble and recoil and it is quite hard to actually get shots to land most of the time. You'd probably get used to this over time if you did a lot of the multiplayer, but just going through the campaign it took a bit of adjusting to.

The campaign itself revolves around an escalating war in the east between 'Murica, the Russians and the Chinese. You start off trying to escape with intel and VIPs, but it soon escalates into all out war and you have to ensure the survival of one of the last US ships in the region.

I don't plan to touch the multiplayer but the campaign was a fun, if fairly safe and run of the mill soldier romp. It did however create a real feeling of being in war with the chaos and cover being shot or blown to bits and not being able to see or hit shit most of the time. Give it a go if you're a fan of FPS or gorgeous visuals but if not, don't bother. But I still had fun going thorugh it.

Lots and lots of choice in this cult hit espionage RPG

Bought this game quite a few years ago on the recomendation of a friend who had played it. But it kind of got pushed to the back burner due to an almost complete lack of knowledge of it. But now that the backlog is finally starting to shrink and choices are getting a bit more limited, I decided to give this one a go.

You play Michael Thorton who has just been initiated into the titular secret Alpha Protocol outfit. Who are there to carry out clandestine government operations which can then be denied and the outfit itself can be dissolved and remade if needs be. You start out being sent on a fairly routine operation, but then naturally everything starts to go wrong and conspiracies start to happen and you end up having to save the world as usual.

The pro-dominant feeling I got when I was playing that it was that it was some kind of present day love-child of Deus Ex and Mass Effect. It's all about the character you build up and what you put your stat points into to make him a killing machine or tech expert or silent killer. And making dialogue choices which were touted as being the 3 "J.Bs". That being James Bond, (suave, charming and flirty), Jason Bourne (straight to the point and professional) and Jack Bauer (in your face and very aggressive). Different characters respond positively or negatively to these dialogue choices. So business like people will respect the professional approach whereas mercenaries and soldiers will prefer the direct and aggressive approach so you have to figure out what works best with each type of person. While this is interesting initially, it quickly becomes very easy to read and predict what people will like what so this fairly quickly becomes redundant.

The 3 sets of footsteps that you can choose to follow in

But you are also given a lot of choice in the routes you can take in missions. You can talk your way into places or sneak your way in or hack your way in or shoot your way in (my preferred approach). This most reminded me of Deus Ex in that there were a lot of different approaches to every situation. But like in both Deus Ex and Mass Effect, there were many many choices of outcomes so there were so many different ways that things could work out and it felt like they were all actually significantly different unlike some other different ways things work out....

There were some minor complaints here and there like general low texture quality, quite lifeless voice-acting and some events do not quite occur like they should. In one case I had an end of mission report stating how the mission events affected a character that I had shot in the head a few hours earlier. So that was odd. But these are pretty small niggles in an otherwise very well put together game that you could play dozens of times easily and have a different outcome each time.

In conclusion, I'd say this is decent enough but I could never shake the feeling that I was playing the lesser cousin of Mass Effect or Deus Ex and just kind of wanted to be playing one of them instead. So give this a go if you've exhausted all those kind of games already and would like to try something a little different, slightly more campy and down to earth (as in not sci-fi). But I always preferred sci-fi settings myself.

An "Origin story" which doesn't seem too far back in time but still involves Batman beating the living snot out of many dudes

I played both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City earlier last year and found them both to be a lot of fun. And although the basic gameplay was very similar (and fun) which involved a smooth as silk combo criminal beating system where you could fly between guys kicking and punching their faces in building up combos and performing various special moves to take out specialist enemies. Once you earned the skills, you could also employ gadgets mid combo like throwing Batarangs to stun and such. Arkham Origins carries over the same combat system but this time throws in some new moves and new gadgets into the mix.

Although all the Arkham games had the same basic combat, gadget, skill and levelling systems, the first was very linear being set inside an Asylum. Apart from a few large open areas in the asylum, you were pretty much on a rail in the first game. However, city was different and had a much touted "open-world" where you could freely move around Arkham City using your gadgets and go after side quests and such having more freedom before. Origins adopts a very similar system. So much similar of a system that it almost feels like a redoing of Arkham City with with a different plot, some different environments, weapons and gadgets. It reminds me of the large feeling of similarity between Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Assassin's Creed 2.

As the name implies, this is a prequel and according to the in-game dialogue, this takes place in Batman's second year of being the bat and about 6 years before the original Arkham Asylum. So this sets you up to be meeting a lot of the main villans for the first time. And although this is interesting to see how things begin, it also means that a lot of the Batman villans are re-used. There are some that haven't been in the games before, but there's a fair few that we have seen before. The game also takes place between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day (although I don't actually recall ever seeing daylight at any stage) and apart from a few Christmassy set pieces and a couple of mentions in the dialogue, it does not feel terribly Christmassy. Which is a bit sad because I would have liked Christmas to come into it more.

The gameplay itself as mentioned, remains the same as the previous games and is a tremendous amount of fun. You have the usual out and out gang fights, and the predator sections where you must take out rooms undetected and a selection of very varied boss fights each needing unique tactics and thinking to take out. One thing I did notice in this is that Batman has a lot of inner dialogue telling you what he has to do next. This is clearly meant as an aid to help show you how to progress next but I don't remember him helping out this much in previous games and it felt a bit too hand-holding at points. But then at times when you really were stuck on how to proceed he would be very quiet. Which was a tad annoying. He does have some cool and new interesting gadgets this time round like glue bombs which can be used to stick goons, remote wire shooters that can make ziplines and an EMP like disruptor which can shut down electronic devices from afar. These and some new combos and moves are some of the few new elements that mix the system up and add new things into it.

Despite being almost a complete redo of the previous game, I would still recommend this to anyone who has played or enjoyed either Arkham games, or anyone who likes Batman, or anyone who likes beating up lots of dudes. It is a lot of fun, but the developers seem to have realised what big hits the previous two games were and have taken a "if it's not broke, don't fix it" attitude. So just don't expect anything shockingly different to what came before it.

Swings and roundabouts on this indie title from the wacky mind of Tim Schafer

Another title from a Humble Bundle got quite some time ago and only getting to it now.

My first impressions of it were not great because of the quirky art style which seemed to be a bit of a knock-off of a Tim Burton film. But thankfully, this similarity faded as I went through it. You play as a young psychic kid who has gone to a summer camp for psychic kids where they are groomed and trained to become psychic agents or "Psychonauts". The basic gameplay is kind of similar to your basic action RPG. You explore and talk to people which unlocks dungeon-like levels where you have to perform platforming and general killing tasks to unlock badges that give you new skills and abilities. There are also many collectibles to get all over the place that will up your level (some skills have level requirements), increase your health, ammo and act as currency to buy necessary items. All the while having weird and wacky interactions with the other kids and teachers. Most of the design and writing are done by Tim Schafer who is well known for his humorous writing style having been behind such hits as Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and Brutal Legend. While his writing is generally quite funny, I found myself flip-flopping a lot on the writing on this one and half the time I couldn't decide if the writing was awful, awesome or awfully awesome. But thankfully, it did tend to go on a upward trend as the game progressed and got better.

There are a lot of genuinely interesting levels and set pieces too. A lot of them involve using a small magic door to go into peoples minds. So the level is based on what that persons psyche is like. And since everyones mind is different, this creates a very wide variety of themes and levels ranging from the perfectly geometrical, neat and organised mind of a german to a surreal suburban neighbourhood full of spies and conspiracy theories belonging to a mad security guard and even a risk like board game belonging to the mind of an orderly directly descended from Napoleon Bonaparte. This made for many different and interesting levels each one quite different from the last and needing different tactics. And because you were also dealing with people's psyches here you also did end up dealing with quite a lot of mental and emotional problems. The solving of which were usually the primary goal for the level. But these were actually dealt with in a surprisingly mature and proper manner which was quite a surprise to me in what was basically a comedy game.

One rather annoying downpoint was the grinding that was necessary to get money for required items and to get past level restrictions for new skills. It felt like this was just padding to make the game longer and was a bit tiresome. There were also a few weird difficulty walls along the way and a huge one right at the end that was very annoying seeing how close the ending was. But these were fairly minor quibbles in an otherwise very enjoyable and funny adventure.

I put this game off for quite a while because I really didn't have much of a clue what the hell it was about and I really hadn't ever heard anything about it. But once over a few initial hurdles at the start, it was a fun little action RPG that did result in quite a few laugh out loud moments. LOL.

A cut down mobile version of an amazing game that has sadly lost a lot in the conversion.

I played the full fat PC version of this game when it came out almost a year ago back in November 2012 and man was that an amazing game. Because it was made by the Burnout team at Criterion (who can do no wrong in my opion) it was pure racing carnage from start to finish all to the tune of an amazing soundtrack that just made it rock even more.

Most of the soundtrack was carried over to this portable version, but sadly, that was pretty much the only thing.

I got this iOS version during a Christmas sale last year shortly after I got the missus an iPad and played it in bits and pieces at the time, but by and large didn't play it much again until recently to put it to bed. Naturally, it has had to be simplified to work on a touch device but in the process, a lot has been lost. The touch steering feels clunky and un-precise. And this is a game that does need a lot of precision when racing at these speeds. So the loss of finesse in controls often results in a lot of wall slamming and loss of control. The method of vehicle acquisition has also changed a lot from the proper version's "Find it, Drive it" method. Which is sad because that was a cool system. Any car you found in the open world you could just start driving it and then afterwards switch to anytime you want. Most were out in the open world, but 10 of the best were won by shutting down the Most Wanted drivers. In this portable version, it resorts to a more traditional and cheaper method of buying the cars for cash that you have to win in races making getting them a much more tiresome affair.

I'd say this was a fun enough mobile game that's decent if you're on the go and don't have the option to play the proper one. But if you do have that option, just play the superior version because there's really no competition sadly and playing this one just makes me want to play it's bigger brother. I expected more from EA on this one to be honest. Because they have made some very awesome portable games before.

The Hitman series continues to show steady increase in quality

This was again a lot more enjoyable than the previous Hitman game before it. Upgrades all around once again. Seeing as it was an early XBox 360 game, it benefited from an engine and graphical upgrade. There was an actual tutorial level explaining to you many of the games mechanics to use in the coming levels. You can climb and jump over a lot of stuff expanding your movements. You can also now hide bodies in boxes and crates and such to make sure they are not found.

There are also a lot more more different ways to carry out the missions. Most of them have ways to set up the hits to seem like accidents which help keep the suspicion-ometer low. I also felt that there was a lot more variety in the missions this time round. Both in the settings and scenarios and locations. In the words of the excellent lads at Consolevania, the missions feel like "Mini-movies". There seemed to be a lot more leniency in the missions allowing for mistakes but still let you succeed. The equipment management changed again slightly. From the word go, you have the same set of pistols, smgs, sniper rifles, extra gear, etc. And you can incrementally upgrade these as the missions go on to have better add ons and such to make them better at their job. You also get gear that can be used to patch up your wounds and give you a second chance.

The different approaches seem easier to find this time around. More intuitive and much less obtuse. So if you are trying one approach and it doesn't seem to be working, you'll probably already have a potential backup plan or one will not be too hard to find.

Only downside was that this one felt quite short compared to the previous ones. It may have just been that more of the missions were possible to run and gun through and didn't need huge protracted plans laid out and perfectly executed. It was mentioned to me by a friend before I played this, and I do agree with him, that this game feels changed from the previous Hitman games in the way that Splinter Cell: Conviction changed from the previous Splinter Cell games before it: it is still possible to go full stealth if you want to like before. That has never changed and the challenge is still there if you want it. But it is also now possible to try stealth and still be able to shoot your way out if stealth fails and live and succeed at the mission. I much prefer this setup because I will always try to be stealthy at first. But more often than not, it will not work out and I like to be able to shoot my way out if things go wrong.

My favourite Hitman of the series so far by miles. I may even pick up Absolution at some point now...maybe....

Definite step up from the original Hitman. But still unnecessarily clumsy and obscure in places

This was a definite step up from the first entry in the series. The controls seemed a lot better laid out and intuitive. The graphics engine was slightly upgraded, although not too much because it came out only a couple of years after the original. This was also when it made the jump to multi-platform and consoles instead of being PC exclusive like the original. There was actually some hints and tutorials giving you ideas of what to do. But it still felt like a lot of the time the way forward was very unclear. But maybe I'm just stupid. The mission structure is a little looser so it is possible to make a mistake or two and recover to eventual success. Equipment is also done a little differently from the first whereas before, you had a set shopping list for each mission and you could buy what you could afford from what the ICA allowed you to (depending on how you did in previous missions). Now, you start off with a few basics and then any equipment you are carrying when a mission is finished will be brought back to your HQ and you can use it in any future missions. It seemed like a much better way of handling it to me. And the map got a huge upgrade now being able to show you all different areas, live enemy positions, labels and much more to help you plan the mission.

It's not all good though. The NPCs are still just a bit too keen-eyed sometimes and spot or hear things they really should not. And a lot of the times if someone spots you and thinks you look suspicious, then they will just start following you even if you hide and when they do, there's really no way to stop them and once they get a look at you, you're blown. The suspicion-ometer is a good addition though. You now have a rough idea of how suspicious your activities are and can adjust them accordingly. The early missions were definitely the hardest giving you a false sense of the difficulty. The later missions do get quite a lot easier and it is possible to just do flat out killing in a lot of them thankfully. But then there is a huge difficulty wall again right at the end, but that was to be expected really.

Overall, an improvement over the original for sure, but I still think the sequels will improve more from what I've heard. On to Blood Money next!

An unpleasant grind through a clunky PC exclusive that has not aged very well

Got this in a Steam sale bundle a while ago and have been putting off playing it until now because I played it back when it came out originally back in 2000 (13 years ago now?!?!) and was put off by how unintuitive and hard to get into it was. 13 years on and it's even harder to get into and even less intuitive sadly.

I knew that it was primarily a stealth game but was still hoping that there would be room for some brute forcing if done properly. This was doable in the first 2 levels and beyond that the objectives became too complicated for it to be at all feasible. The basic premise of the game is that you are a Hitman, shockingly, and you have to get into places silently, usually kill a target of some kind and maybe get something in and/or out on the way. Almost always without being detected. There are usually numerous ways to go about this by sneaking into places, playing identity theft, poisoning people rather than stabbing them and generally a lot of sneaky underhanded tactics. Unfortunately, despite there being apparently multiple ways of doing things, these things are very rarely clear at all and it will often many many failed attempts before you will even have a clue of what kind of approach to take. And even then, it's so easy to fuck up something as simple as forgetting to put a gun away or leaving a foot poking out a door and then youre spotted and its all bust.

One particularly maddening thing is that there are no mid level save points. And if you take your time and do things carefully, some of the bigger levels can take upwards of an hour. So a fuck up towards the end is quite an irritant. You do get the mercy of 5 respawns per level if you're killed but these are of little use if you've failed any of the objectives which are usually harder to do than simply staying alive. The controls are also incredibly clunky. Which is bad because speed is often of the essence for example in order to grab someone and strangle them in a brief window of no one seeing it and then hide the body before anyone comes back. But many manys a time I would be left fumbling with the controls trying to drag the body out of sight and failing only to have another guard walk in and start ventilating me.

The shorter simpler missions were the more enjoyables ones where there were less variables to contend with such as time limits and objectives and if you fucked up it wasn't too much to repeat. But some of them were stupidly long to have no way to save in the middle. Just seemed to be a lot of broken mechanics in this game through and through. The 2nd game, which will be next up, must have been a huge improvement because it's hard to see a series that now has 5 entries in it spawned from this buggy (I also had to restart many times due to getting stuck in shit or respawning into objects) glitchy infuriating mess of a game. I had to play it because I bought it on Steam and it was on the backlog, but I'd recommend anyone that wants to play some of the Hitman series not to start with this one. Skip it.

Here's hoping the 2nd one is better cause I still have it and Hitman: Blood Money to play. I'm unsure of what #2 is like but I have heard many excellent reports of Blood Money's awesomeness so at least that one should help get the sour taste of this one out of my mouth, right? Right?

A much postponed and much lauded cult hit that stood up well to the hype

I have long been aware of this game and it's reputation as being a commercial failure yet cult classic. One of the reasons it slipped me by then was that it came out amongst many other big heavy hitters including the awesome Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow of which the multiplayer mode stole many hours of my time. I very nearly again played it when the XBox 360 HD remake of it came out, but once again, it slipped me by. I then finally got it cheap on Steam and seeing as the PC version would be HD anyway and easier to configure and control, I thought this would be the best option.

I could tell as soon as I started it up that it was going to be a lot of fun. The art style, direction, music and the world as a while is all extremely nicely put together and makes a great world for you to explore. The characters themselves as well as the character interaction is very well written and feels genuine and non-cheesey so you do start to forge bonds with them. The controls, menus and interactions with in game items and people all seem much smoother than most games of this era making navigating around and doing stuff really easy and quick, which again, was a rarity in the days that this was originally released.

The only one minor gripe I would have about it is that the main meat of the story is fairly short and towards the end there is a lot of fluffing the game out by making you hunt for X number of an arbitrary item so you can get equipment you need. These side quests are still fun enough but I feel they should have stayed as side quests and not been used as the main story to fill it out. It quite reminded me of the end of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker when you were forced to amass huge amounts of money and go hunting for Triforce charts and then Triforce pieces to unlock the final dungeon. Quite tiresome and should have been side missions. Although I hear this quest has been streamlined in the new HD version of the Wind Waker so I look forward to seeing the result of that.

The main gameplay of Beyond Good and Evil focuses around a number of what could be referred to as "Dungeons" where you have to move through them unlocking various areas, co-operating with your buddies and eventually getting photographic evidence to uncover evidence of a government conspiracy. You do this through a combination of stealth, exploration, manipulating the environments and some combat. Your character is not terribly powerful so the combat can be tricky often forcing you to lean towards stealth or alternative tactics. But despite my preference of going in all guns blazing and killing everything I can clap my eyes on, I didn't mind the lean towards stealth here because it worked very well.

I'd say overall, this has a very similar feel to Zelda games because of the dungeon like areas, the exploration of the over-world, mix of stealth and combat. That's probably why it all works well together but this is placed in a very different world with a lot more interaction with the world and your team-mates than Zelda games usually does giving you a better feeling of connection to it. Also your character is not what seems to be a retarded mute.

So I would say to anyone who enjoys Zelda games or anything similar to them, this is definitely worth checking out. It is indeed a very over-looked game that is well worthy of the reputation it has earned from the undeservedly low number of people that did play it. This was also intended to be part of a trilogy but the 2nd game has been in development limbo for many many years being constantly delayed for higher priority things like (the admittedly awesome) Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends. I am really hoping that it happens now. Come on Ubisoft....you love making things into franchises. Make this into one!

Finally laying to rest a huge series of puzzling puzzles

Been playing this game on and off for a number of years now, but finally decided to make the push to finish it recently.

Picross, or Nonogram as it is more commonly known is a puzzle game where you are given a grid and each row and column shows you the number of blocks that need to be marked in on that grid and how many consecutive blocks together there are. Sounds like a simple concept, but as with most simple concepts, mastering it is another matter entirely.

Solving some of the larger grid puzzles can get very hard and involve some serious tactical and deterministic thinking. And the odd guess every now and then. Naturally when playing this game in a paper as they are often published, you are not told of the mistakes you are making but in the electronic versions, you are. Each mistake deducts time from you and when you run out, you fail the puzzle. This is the normal mode. However, the electronic versions of Picross also feature a harder mode similar to the paper version where you are not told your mistakes so the numbers can be right, but the puzzle itself is not right.

I first got hooked on Picross by first playing the awesome Mario's Picross back on the original Game Boy. I was instantly hooked on the satisfaction of chipping away tiles and revealing a picture. I then went on to play the Japanese only Mario's Picross 2, this game and the awesomely intense Picross 3D. This was definitely the longest of all of them (with 165 puzzles in the normal mode alone) hence me only finally finishing it now. But I enjoyed every minute of it and hope there will be more Picross in the future.

Side note: this marks the 139th game finished this year. Officially surpassing last year's 2012 game total of 138. Go 2013! And there's still 2 and a half months left in this year to finish more games. Let's see what we can do with that.

Defending towers from zombies in extreme low detail

Defending towers from zombies in extreme low detail

I got this title a few years ago in one of the many excellent Humble Bundles but apart from doing one or two levels for a Steam Christmas challenge, I have not played a lot of it.  But me and Eugene were stuck for something to play the other night due to his rig, Shepard, being out of action from an RMA’d Corsair H100 cooler.  And this was a very fast one to download, so we went for it.  And we were pleasantly surprised.

I didn’t care too much for this game the first time I played it, but I was just trying to play it in a hurry to get the Steam badge.  Having more time to get into it, I enjoyed it more.  It’s your basic normal tower defence game only with some twists on the theme.  You are fighting a campaign against zombies (referred to as Zeds) in the 60s and the game board consists of a number of territories.  Zeds spread across the territories, as they do and it’s your job to contain them.  You do this by picking a zone and going in there. Levels of infestation can range from 1 (a small town with not a huge number of Zeds) to 4 (A huge city completely covered in them).  You can win in one of two ways:

Kill all the Zeds before nightfall (this is when they swarm you).  This is the harder option, but nets you the territory which will give you campaign points each turn for as long as you can hold it.

Evacuate a set number of people from the city before they are eaten.  This is the easier option, but the Zeds will still hold the territory giving them campaign points each turn.

We started off trying to play it the latter way, but were getting thoroughly trounced over and over again so when the Zeds had got all the campaign points they needed to get the overall win, we restarted on a slightly lower difficulty and went with the Zed killing and territory holding route and this worked out much better for us.

The actual tower defence part is the main meat of the game and you are assigned different units for each turn, up to 5 in total.  These units can range from very useful, like a mercenary who you can point to wherever you want and will kill anything he sees.  To quite useless like barricades that can be used to filter Zeds to one place and that’s about it.  The units can be upgraded as you get experience and time and success will unlock newer and better units that can bring in or rain down much death on the Zeds.  It’s all very tactical and trying to make the best of the units you have can make the difference between winning and losing.

It’s all a lot to take in at first and it seems quite easy to lose a campaign or two before you figure out what you are doing and have even a chance of winning.  But once you do, it gets to be a lot of fun.  The co-op mode allows two people to control different units at the same time.  So one can direct soldiers and the other can direct artillery for example.  Meaning less multi-tasking and getting caught out.  It’s an interesting way to do co-op tower defence that I can’t recall too many examples of and playing with a friend always makes it more fun.

The writing is quite funny as well and the descriptions of the various mercenary units and archive of the campaign are very good reading if you can stay away from killing Zeds long enough.  The one minor down point, if it really is one, is that the graphics are extremely basic.  And I do mean extremely.  You view the city top down and all the Zeds and people and most units are simply different colours little square dots.  Even the city itself is very low detail not being much more than a series of grey squares.  But one could argue that this is to allow you to focus on the tactical side and not get distracted.  I didn’t mind it much really.

A fun but short Zed killing romp that has a lot of replay value packed in there should you want to return to it and explore further.  Sadly, I did not get any screenshots of this one myself, so I will just post a few from the internets here:

Many changes of trousers needed for this truly terrifying experience

I knew this game had a reputation for being both excellent and very scary. I got it quite a while ago in a Humble Bundle but have put it off because I was all too aware of it's reputation. Even when I did get started, I couldn't really play it for more than 30-60 minutes at a time because it was just so mentally exhausting to play. But I had to push through. For the Backlog! It's worth noting at the start that this game has no combat mechanics whatsoever so any monsters you do encounter you have to either run or hide from. And if you get stuck where you can't run or hide, then it's pretty much always game over. This is where a lot of the fear comes from, that feeling of total helplessness and not wanting to have to restart if you get caught. That and the fact that the monsters are freaky as all hell and when they spot you and start coming at you and the creepy music is throbbing loudly, it's exceedingly un-nerving and you really wish you had some kind of fire-arm to blow their misshapen heads off or at least a stick of some description but all you can do is run or die.

The sanity effects are another big part of it. Witnessing weird/unsettling events/objects, seeing monsters and being in the dark will reduce your sanity. And then the screws start to come out of the world. Your vision goes hazy, you start to see and hear things, things can move of their own accord. It's quite like being drunk only you get a sense of deep fear rather than general well-being. One particula sanity effect involved a door slamming suddenly for no reason. And I would be lying if that one did not damn near make me jump out of my seat. The static screenshots shown here can do little to convey the atmosphere of helplessness, intimidation and how all you want to do is run away rather than keep pressing deeper and deeper down. It's something that needs to be experienced to be believed.

The puzzles are very well crafted and not usually following common game logic and will often require you to do some inventive thinking to solve them. They all seem well put together and thought out. And thankfully, you do not have to do these in a hurry and can take your time to solve them. The story is also one of interest in that you have lost your memory totally (hence the name) and have no memories of anything. But as soon as the game is started, you find a letter from your former self (before you got amnesia) telling you that you have to kill a guy called Alexander and you are being chased by an unstoppable shadow. So that being the sum of your knowledge, off you go to do some murdering. The rest of the story is pieced together from flashbacks as you visit places you have already been and from notes left around the world by both yourself and others. A common mechanic, yes, but it all comes together quite nicely at the conclusion and there are multiple endings depending on actions taken.

To have come from a relatively small developer, the graphical engine and art direction is also quite superb. The atmosphere of slowly descending through this dark and foreboding place is aided greatly by the feeling of immersion and the attention to detail put into your surroundings.

This is definitely an experience that I will not be forgetting anytime soon. It gives even the likes of Silent Hill a run for it's money in terms of true psychological terror and atmosphere. And I would recommend it to any fans of the genre. Just keep a stack of clean trousers close to hand so you can swap them out quick when they are inevitably soiled. But at least in Silent Hill you could fight back against the things that lurk in the dark....

I will leave you with an excellent example of why this game is so scary from the wonderful comic site hejibits:

My feelings echoed this exactly every time I would come across one of the game's many many monsters.

The low point of an otherwise very high series

This one was a struggle to finish. Quite sad really because when I first got it, I was very excited to continue the Wipeout awesomeness after Wip3out. I played it for a little bit after I got it, but never finished it. Now, probably...8 years later, I return to it. Actually, this is the 2nd time that I return to it. I originally tried it back in April and did not care for it much and so moved on to WipEout Pure and WipEout Pulse instead which were much much better. And then I was too weary to go back to it again.

But I finally did. And finally finished it. And it was a bit of a chore because although it looks and sounds like WipEout, it does not feel and does not control like WipEout. It's not something that I can put my finger on. Although the tracks were purposefully made wider to try and make it more accessible, but it was somehow harder and more difficult to control.

But I got through it. For the sake of completeness of the WipEout series and the fact that I had already bought it. But I did not really enjoy it. And I would not recommend it. That is all.

Back to extremely high speed racing action. With a sad air hanging over it.

And so we come to another entry in the WipEout series.  And a game of many firsts and lasts.  Although this is not the last game in the series I have yet to play (still WipEout 2097, WipEout 64 and WipEout Fusion to finish), nor is it the last one in the chronological timeline of the series (it’s the first).  It is one of the first titles to be made for the Playstation Vita and it is more than likely the last WipEout game that will ever be made.  This is because it was the last game to be made by Studio Liverpool (formerly Psygnosis) before it was closed by Sony.  This was a sad day because I can recall playing Psygnosis games such as Chrono Quest way back in the days of the Atari ST and played many of their other titles in days since like Lemmings, Rollcage, Team Buddies and more.

The gameplay is instantly familiar to anyone who has played any of the other WipEout games.  Racing at speeds in the hundreds of miles an hour while hovering just a few feet off the ground and blasting your opponents into pieces while trying to get ahead of them and not die or slam into walls.  The racing style of these games has always been a bit of an acquired taste because it can be extremely unforgiving particularly to a newcomer who will often be slamming off walls continuously unable to control their high speed craft.  But if you stick with it, in time you will be gliding around quite happily.  It never really gets to the point where it’s easy, but you will eventually be able to win.  If you can learn to stop blinking, that is.

The gameplay is mixed up a little in each game and this one is no different.  Instead of a chain of tournaments, there is now a race board that you progress through.  There is a main path to follow with all the mandatory events and also branch off optional ones that can be used to earn extra experience and ships.  Experience is also a thing this time.  Everything you do from hitting boost pads to winning races gets you experience.  Obviously winning races in 1^st place gets you the most, but the more experience you get; the higher your level goes.  And the higher your level goes, the more bonus tracks and ships you can unlock.  Going through the main campaign will only net you a small number of ships and levels and there seems to be a lot more levels and ships to unlock.  Each event now has a pass requirement which used to only be present on some events in previous games.  In combat, you must do a certain number of points of damage.  In races, you must achieve a certain position.  In time trials, you must finish under a certain time, etc.

The main campaign itself is quite short, probably under 5 hours and is not too hard to get through with the exception of a few difficulty walls here and there (mostly at the end).  I’ve always been a big fan of the WipEout series ever since it’s first entry on the original PlayStation and this one is no exception.  No racing game can match the thrill or the tension when you are hurtling round the tight tracks and nailing all the corners.  It is something else.  Very few complaints at all come to mind for this game other than the minor one that Studio Liverpool neglected to enable the Vita's screenshot ability for it.  Yes, there is an in-race photo mode so you can take shots of the racing action and add blur effects and such.  But it is slow and cumbersome to use and I would have much preferred the normal screenshot ability.  Hence the low number of screenshots for this game.

But knowing this was the last WipEout game ever to be released made playing this quite a sombre affair because as I was enjoying it and marvelling at it’s technical achievement on what was at the time, the brand new Vita, I was constantly aware that it was WipEout’s swan song.  I had this game since summer 2012 and I probably should have played it before the studio closed so as not to have this haunting the experience.  This is also the last vita game that I have to play.  And there is only one other on my wish-list, the very ico-like Rime.  So it seems like the Vita will be gathering dust again for a while now unless more titles come out to pique my interest.

More heavy stuff going down in the Metro. But again, it all looks gorgeous and hits you like a slap in the face

And so we return to the Metro. After the collapse of Metro 2033's publisher, THQ, it looked uncertain as to whether this game would be made at all or not, but thankfully, Deep Silver bought the license and all was well.

It was initially thought that this game would be named after and based off the follow up to the original Metro 2033, Metro 2034. But it was eventually revealed that would not be the case and that it would be a new story written with consultation from the author, Dmitry Glukhovsky.

This sequel is just as beautiful, if not even more beautiful that the previous entry again providing a game that is both an excellent system benchmark and great to play. Powered by the same 4A engine as before and tweaked a little, everything below and above ground is rendered gorgeously especially in DirectX 11. A Playstation 4 version is planned but I'm quite sure even that one will not look as good as the maxed out PC version. For shame.

The gameplay itself remains mostly unchanged bar a few control layout tweaks some of which are good and some of which are not. Mask filters are also no longer automatically changed for you, so you can suffocate should you somehow not notice Artyom gasping hystericly and change the filter for yourself. There is also a fair bit less stealth in this entry compared to the last one. In Metro 2033, you were very very underpowered and were forced to stealth through some areas (as best you could) due to simply not being able to take on all the enemies at once. For whatever reason, that concept was thrown out the window and you can now force your way through pretty much any situation with enough shooting and stabbing. Maybe not comfortably, but it is doable whereas there were a lot of situations in the previous game where it simply was not. This is mainly due to the fact that you seem to be able to absorb 10 times the amount of bullets to the face that you could before. This could be explained by the fact that Artyom is now an official Ranger of the Spartan Order (an independent group of excellent and strong willed soldiers) and wears proper armour and such. Or it may have been done simply to make the game a little more accessible. Whatever the reason, it means you now can and do get into a lot more large firefights and mutant swarms and even a few boss fights and feel a tad more comfortable in doing so than before. But none of this means that the dark, quiet and lonely sections no longer fill you with genuine tension and apprehension. Because they still do. And still make you freak at the slightest sound in the distance. Especially when you travel through the areas containing masses of lingering spirits of those lost in the nuclear holocaust. Those sections are something to behold indeed.

A fantastic sequel to a brilliant and original game. I hope the series can continue because I feel like I too am part of the Metro now....and I want it's people to be able to return to the surface one day.

Assassin's Creed III Gaiden. With a chick. In the bayou.

I got this for Christmas 2012 but am only just getting around to playing it now. This was touted as another "full-fat console game" on a handheld. It was the recent announcement, much to my irritation, of a HD version of this game being released that reminded me about it again and spirred me to finally play it. Followers of this blog may recall this exact same thing happened before with Resident Evil: Revelations. I was given the game as a gift when it was still exclusive to it's original platform and then shortly afterwards, it was announced to be releasing on pretty much every other platform under the sun. Rage.

The Assassin's Creed games are all starting to get a bit samey to I went into this knowing what to expect for the most part. This entry's unique mechanic was to have 3 different outfits: Lady, Slave and Assassin. Unfortunately, this seemed to be a bit of a forced gimmick in that the slave and assassin personas were not very different (except that the slave one can blend in easier) and the lady one is just a great hinderance because of the huge gown meaning you can't run fast of climb or carry many weapons. But thankfully, this entry in the series seemed to have more actual assassinating in it that most recent ones which was a good change of pace. It reminded me most of the original Assassin's creed in that most sequences would involve you finding a big target, trailing and spying to try and find a plan of attack and then carrying out that plan. Which was a good formula and it's a bit dissapointing that the newer games are drifting from it so much. Also some of the touch screen gimmicks thrown in were kind of annoying especially one where you had to shine a bright light into the camera which did not seem to work very well.

The visuals looked very good on the Vita itself due to it running on a trimmed down version of the same Anvil engine that Assassin's Creed III used. However, when I transferred the screenshots to desktop, they looked a bit grainy and lumpy sadly.

All in all, a fairly by the numbers Assassin's Creed entry. Main points of attraction being that it can be played on the go and you get to do quite a bit of assassinating. As the Assassin's Creed games are all getting so similar with their yearly entries, and this one launched last year along with Assassin's Creed III technically making 2 entries in 2012, meaning they are mostly just being played for the story now. But as the title of this post suggested, it felt more like a side-story just made to tie in and feature a small crossover with it's bigger brother console game. Definitely worth it if you're a big fan of the series. Probably not if otherwise.