As it's been 3 months from my last review, and I haven't bought any proper games since then, I'll give you three short ones.
Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney Investigations
Classic Ace Attorney game play, but combined featuring Edgey as the main character. The gameplay is also a bit more in-depth, allowing you to actually control the characters. It's funny, the writing is as brilliant as ever, and the new characters are excelletly developed.
Lego Rock Band
Same Rock Band gameplay, same old story. Still the best music game series, but this lets it down a little. No online, coupled with some very dissapointing track charts, makes for a not very good game. The tracks are exportable to Rock Band/Rock Band 2, which fixes the online problem. The cut scenes are great, and Lego Spinal Tap really made me laugh.
Quake 2
PlayStation version. Classic FPS gameplay. You can really see what games like Bad Comapany and Modern Warfare are missing when you play a four player round of this. The guns are fun and far from the realism you get with modern games, and the maps are well rounded and aren't built for camping or sniping, just for fast and furious killing fun. The single player is pretty good, but it doesn't even touch the fun you can have with four people and a multitap (remeber those?).
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Monday, 30 November 2009
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? I picked this up at full price, choosing it over Brutal Legend (which was a good choice seeing as I got BRutal Legend a lot cheaper the other day). I loved the original Uncharted, it had a great story, great characters and great gameplay. that's all though, just "great", nothing pushed it into the higher categories, like "genius" or "brilliant".
This game, however, pushes the boundaries of what the first game showed was possible. The move from the Uncharted Engine to the much more refined Havok Engine has really allowed Naughty Dog to concentrate on building a fantastic experience. The graphics are top notch, and the only things blighting the first game, the terrible Sixaxis moments and Quick-Time-Events (DEVELOPERS! QTE'S HAVE ONLY EVER BEEN GOOD IN TWO GAMES! GOD OF WAR AND RESIDENT EVIL 4 WII EDITION! PLEASE DON'T USE THEM ANY MORE!) have been removed.
The story is superb and is full of twists and turns and amazing set pieces. The train sequence is one of the best ever. The cover mechanics are simple and effective, and the guns feel accurate and realistic, although you will probably never feel the need to deffer from the Pistol/AK47 combo unless you run out of ammo at any point.
The acting flows and the voice acting is at worst grating after a few straight hours. The characters are fun to watch and it is essentially a 7 hour movie. It's what a proper Indiana Jones game should be.
Onto the Multiplayer! This is fun and mixes up the basic single player. The only proplem I really found with it was that as soon as Modern Warfare 2 landed those playing it literally halved. The maps aren't that great, but more are promised, with The Fort map being released for free this past weekend.
Good
Gameplay is far more refined than the first.
It feels like a playable movie, which is what games have been trying to do for years.
Bad
You will never really need to use any other weapons than the basic ones.
Story is way too short, but this is becoming the norm at the moment.
Overall
A fantastic experience which is worth at least one play through of the story. If you have a PS3, this is essential stuff. If you haven't consider it. This would be great as a movie and is one of the best stories in gaming so far. It's funny and the multiplayer is incredibly playable. GOTY contender? I think so.
PS If anyone actually reads this, please leave me a comment.
This game, however, pushes the boundaries of what the first game showed was possible. The move from the Uncharted Engine to the much more refined Havok Engine has really allowed Naughty Dog to concentrate on building a fantastic experience. The graphics are top notch, and the only things blighting the first game, the terrible Sixaxis moments and Quick-Time-Events (DEVELOPERS! QTE'S HAVE ONLY EVER BEEN GOOD IN TWO GAMES! GOD OF WAR AND RESIDENT EVIL 4 WII EDITION! PLEASE DON'T USE THEM ANY MORE!) have been removed.
The story is superb and is full of twists and turns and amazing set pieces. The train sequence is one of the best ever. The cover mechanics are simple and effective, and the guns feel accurate and realistic, although you will probably never feel the need to deffer from the Pistol/AK47 combo unless you run out of ammo at any point.
The acting flows and the voice acting is at worst grating after a few straight hours. The characters are fun to watch and it is essentially a 7 hour movie. It's what a proper Indiana Jones game should be.
Onto the Multiplayer! This is fun and mixes up the basic single player. The only proplem I really found with it was that as soon as Modern Warfare 2 landed those playing it literally halved. The maps aren't that great, but more are promised, with The Fort map being released for free this past weekend.
Good
Gameplay is far more refined than the first.
It feels like a playable movie, which is what games have been trying to do for years.
Bad
You will never really need to use any other weapons than the basic ones.
Story is way too short, but this is becoming the norm at the moment.
Overall
A fantastic experience which is worth at least one play through of the story. If you have a PS3, this is essential stuff. If you haven't consider it. This would be great as a movie and is one of the best stories in gaming so far. It's funny and the multiplayer is incredibly playable. GOTY contender? I think so.
PS If anyone actually reads this, please leave me a comment.
Saturday, 26 September 2009
The Beatles: Rock Band
I picked this up after some great reviews and discovering I had nearly £20 in vouchers at for the local GAME which didn't have Guitar Hero Metallica in stock.
The Beatles have hundreds of classic songs, and are amongst the most legendary bands in all of music. No one can contest that they deserved a Rhythm game more than any other band ever. We're not here to talk about that, we are here to talk about the game itself.
Obviously, the soundtrack is superb, not a bad song on it, which is more than can be said for every other Guitar Hero/Rock Band game. Every song is uniquely enjoyable and playable. The graphics are sublime and opening and closing cinematic sequences are a sight to behold. I seriously think that a proper animated Beatles film should be made in the same style.
Everything has been taken into consideration, properly charting the history of the band, this is no mere conversion of songs into squares plummeting toward you, but a full on experience of The Beatles music, in a totally new way.
However, historical accuracy does away with the most important thing any game can get right, the difficulty curve. At the first set list, The Cavern Club, you are greeted with some pretty hard songs, obviously the songs they would have played at this period of their careers, but you would expect to have something easy to lead you into the game. This leads to problems later on, with Yellow Submarine and the likes seeming far too easy for the position they hold in the career mode. It's listed as the easiest song in the game, so why have it in the third to last set list?
Once you get past the historical accuracy making a joke out of gaming standards, you look past the game to see what it is, the best Rock Band expansion pack you could ever wish for, and a superb contemporary documentary of The Beatles, presenting their music in a way that embraces the relatively new technology of video games.
This is the peak of Rhythm games so far, and will likely remain that way until the always looking more likely Led Zeppelin: Rock Band rolls around and gives us all a nice kick in the teeth.
John, Paul, George, Ringo, Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. Ono and everyone who worked on this over at Harmonix and MTV Games, I salute you for making possible and putting together the finest music game ever made.
Positives
No bad songs.
Improvements to the basic Rock Band gameplay, including the three mic harmony mode are always welcome additions.
Negatives
Bad, but historically accurate, difficulty curve.
A bit too easy, but The Beatles never were the most musically talented band ever.
Overall
If you like Rock Band, or The Beatles, this is a must buy. No questions asked, just buy it, it is worth every penny and is nothing short of amazing.
The Beatles have hundreds of classic songs, and are amongst the most legendary bands in all of music. No one can contest that they deserved a Rhythm game more than any other band ever. We're not here to talk about that, we are here to talk about the game itself.
Obviously, the soundtrack is superb, not a bad song on it, which is more than can be said for every other Guitar Hero/Rock Band game. Every song is uniquely enjoyable and playable. The graphics are sublime and opening and closing cinematic sequences are a sight to behold. I seriously think that a proper animated Beatles film should be made in the same style.
Everything has been taken into consideration, properly charting the history of the band, this is no mere conversion of songs into squares plummeting toward you, but a full on experience of The Beatles music, in a totally new way.
However, historical accuracy does away with the most important thing any game can get right, the difficulty curve. At the first set list, The Cavern Club, you are greeted with some pretty hard songs, obviously the songs they would have played at this period of their careers, but you would expect to have something easy to lead you into the game. This leads to problems later on, with Yellow Submarine and the likes seeming far too easy for the position they hold in the career mode. It's listed as the easiest song in the game, so why have it in the third to last set list?
Once you get past the historical accuracy making a joke out of gaming standards, you look past the game to see what it is, the best Rock Band expansion pack you could ever wish for, and a superb contemporary documentary of The Beatles, presenting their music in a way that embraces the relatively new technology of video games.
This is the peak of Rhythm games so far, and will likely remain that way until the always looking more likely Led Zeppelin: Rock Band rolls around and gives us all a nice kick in the teeth.
John, Paul, George, Ringo, Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. Ono and everyone who worked on this over at Harmonix and MTV Games, I salute you for making possible and putting together the finest music game ever made.
Positives
No bad songs.
Improvements to the basic Rock Band gameplay, including the three mic harmony mode are always welcome additions.
Negatives
Bad, but historically accurate, difficulty curve.
A bit too easy, but The Beatles never were the most musically talented band ever.
Overall
If you like Rock Band, or The Beatles, this is a must buy. No questions asked, just buy it, it is worth every penny and is nothing short of amazing.
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Review - Pokemon Platinum (DS)
First things first, this is an absolute beast of a game. Most full priced major console games are about 10 hours long, not including multiplayer, yeah? Well this took me 60 hours to clear, and I'm having more fun building a powerful team and battling online, as well as completing my Pokedex.
The game itself is still just the basic Pokemon formula and is roughly the same game as Diamond and Pearl, but is still worth playing through again. The new Pokemon are still not as good as the classic ones we all know and love, but they're not as useless as R/S/E additions such as Luvdisc.
I can't really review this game in depth because it is almost exactly the same as the two previous games, with only a 3D puzzle near the end and some Pokemon locations as difference.
Pros
Long, but not difficult.
The Pokemon formula is still one of the best base games ever made.
Cons
A rehash of Diamond and Pearl
Overall
If you don't have any of the previous two, pick this up. It's an RPG that gets the point between fun grinding and boring grinding nicely and is plenty long for your money. One of the best on the DS.
The game itself is still just the basic Pokemon formula and is roughly the same game as Diamond and Pearl, but is still worth playing through again. The new Pokemon are still not as good as the classic ones we all know and love, but they're not as useless as R/S/E additions such as Luvdisc.
I can't really review this game in depth because it is almost exactly the same as the two previous games, with only a 3D puzzle near the end and some Pokemon locations as difference.
Pros
Long, but not difficult.
The Pokemon formula is still one of the best base games ever made.
Cons
A rehash of Diamond and Pearl
Overall
If you don't have any of the previous two, pick this up. It's an RPG that gets the point between fun grinding and boring grinding nicely and is plenty long for your money. One of the best on the DS.
Monday, 10 August 2009
InFamous Review
First things first, I only bought this game because it was £20 on Ebay. Bit of a bargain.
Anyway, you play Cole, a messenger who happens to deliver a bomb. He wakes up to discover the explosion has given him superpowers, specifically, the ability to use electricity as a weapon and such. He's Electro from Spiderman.
He gets forced into using his powers to help the FBI figure out what happened, but the interesting stuff is the choices you can make. That's right, another game with Karma built in, but this is kinda interesting because it changes some of the powers you get.
For example, if you choose to be Evil, your powers become more deadly and more likely to kill passers as well as the enemies, and the Good powers are mostly used to subdue the enemies, rather than kill everyone.
The missions are interesting and never seem repetitive, the play area is pretty big and the game has the all important "feel", so you actually feel like a superhero, or villain as you play the game. The reminiscence of Spiderman 2: The Movie on PS2 is not a bad thing in this scenario.
The characters are at the least non-annoying and the voice acting is generally good, the graphics look nice and it has decent level of re-playability.
Good:
The two morality choices are different enough to warrant playing through twice.
Its fun playing through on both difficulties.
Bad
Very little reason to play through more than twice
Overall
Its a really good game if you can get a bargain or a long term rental/borrow. It is a very fun game, but not really as unique as it would like to think it is, with both Spiderman 2 and Prototype being very similar games.
Anyway, you play Cole, a messenger who happens to deliver a bomb. He wakes up to discover the explosion has given him superpowers, specifically, the ability to use electricity as a weapon and such. He's Electro from Spiderman.
He gets forced into using his powers to help the FBI figure out what happened, but the interesting stuff is the choices you can make. That's right, another game with Karma built in, but this is kinda interesting because it changes some of the powers you get.
For example, if you choose to be Evil, your powers become more deadly and more likely to kill passers as well as the enemies, and the Good powers are mostly used to subdue the enemies, rather than kill everyone.
The missions are interesting and never seem repetitive, the play area is pretty big and the game has the all important "feel", so you actually feel like a superhero, or villain as you play the game. The reminiscence of Spiderman 2: The Movie on PS2 is not a bad thing in this scenario.
The characters are at the least non-annoying and the voice acting is generally good, the graphics look nice and it has decent level of re-playability.
Good:
The two morality choices are different enough to warrant playing through twice.
Its fun playing through on both difficulties.
Bad
Very little reason to play through more than twice
Overall
Its a really good game if you can get a bargain or a long term rental/borrow. It is a very fun game, but not really as unique as it would like to think it is, with both Spiderman 2 and Prototype being very similar games.
Thursday, 30 July 2009
Review: Wii Sports Resort
This game is hyped to the "core" gamers as a tech demo for the Motion Plus, and to the "casual" crowd as the best thing since Peggle came out (which, as a massive Peggle fan, is hard for me to believe). Either way, its not very successful at either of these things.
The game is essentially a rehash of Wii Sports, with less to do with the actual sports presented in that game.
New stuff includes the interesting but underdeveloped Swordplay, the could have been great-but-is-far-too-fiddly Archery, and the utterly pathetic Cycling.
Cycling is poor because the motion involved have NOTHING to do with actual cycling, its just pumping the Wiimote and Nunchuk up and down and tilting for turns.
Most of the games could have been easily done without the Motion Plus, and three of them, Golf, Bowling, and Table Tennis are just extensions on games you all ready got out of the box with the Wii.
Positives
Swordplay and Table Tennis could become addictive
Golf and Bowling are the best two games on Wii Sports, so expansions are welcome
Negatives
No Online pay at all, seriously, nothing.
None of the games really show off what the Motion Plus can supposedly do.
Overall
If you liked Wii Sports a lot, then get it, it very similar with some nice expansions.
If you didn't like Wii Sports, then don't bother, its the same game with more crap in it.
The game is essentially a rehash of Wii Sports, with less to do with the actual sports presented in that game.
New stuff includes the interesting but underdeveloped Swordplay, the could have been great-but-is-far-too-fiddly Archery, and the utterly pathetic Cycling.
Cycling is poor because the motion involved have NOTHING to do with actual cycling, its just pumping the Wiimote and Nunchuk up and down and tilting for turns.
Most of the games could have been easily done without the Motion Plus, and three of them, Golf, Bowling, and Table Tennis are just extensions on games you all ready got out of the box with the Wii.
Positives
Swordplay and Table Tennis could become addictive
Golf and Bowling are the best two games on Wii Sports, so expansions are welcome
Negatives
No Online pay at all, seriously, nothing.
None of the games really show off what the Motion Plus can supposedly do.
Overall
If you liked Wii Sports a lot, then get it, it very similar with some nice expansions.
If you didn't like Wii Sports, then don't bother, its the same game with more crap in it.
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Halo ODST Preview
By Matt Binns
Halo ODST is prequel to the most hyped game ever, and a game that quite a lot of 360 owners such as myself are looking forward.
At first, I like many, thought “it's just another nail in the Halo coffin” but after seeing footage from E3 and Comic-Con (why is there so much video game coverage at a comic convention?) I've being pulled into looking at and researching this game and boy does it look fantastic.
The new HUD screen looks brilliant and points the way forward, much like a HUD should.
The way Bungie has re-invented the starting-to-die Halo franchise is smart and innovative and because you are a member of the ODST, you can longer duel wield, but you do get things Master Chief never got to try like the Silenced SMG and a brand new Pistol.
A brand new feature is the Firefight mode, which I for one am looking forward to playing over Xbox Live. In Firefight, you face never ending hordes of Covenant, much like the Horde mode of Gears Of War 2, but better probably.
The second disc is essentially a reissue of the Halo 3 multiplayer, so its a decent buy on its own.
Last but not least, ODST owners will get access to the online Beta for the all new Halo Reach, a prequel to the entire saga.
Probably Positives
It looks like Halo Classic, not New Halo (3)
New modes are always welcome, as are improvements on a working mode.
Could Be Negatives
No classic dual wielding
It doesn't feel like it should be a full priced game.
Overall
This game is re-invention of the stagnating Halo universe, and it cannot be faulted for that, but just how similar to Halo 1 & 2 will it be?
Score Prediction: 8/10
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