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.

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.