I’ve been playing a lot of “Stealth” games recently. I say “Stealth” in inverted commas because the first game I’ve been playing is Metal Gear Solid 2 and it’s not necessarily the most hardcore sneak ‘em up in the world. Still the best game ever made though.
Secondly, I’ve been playing Splinter Cell: Conviction, a game so surprisingly good that I’m going to absolutely bum it to bits at the next opportunity.
So as you’ve probably realised, I haven’t been blogging lately. I started my job on Wednesday. My full time job, to be precise, meaning I haven’t really had the time to do anything of late. Still, I’ve reached the point now where I’m going to be able to blog more frequently for the first time in months. Understandably, this isn’t the perfect, daily updates of yore but hey I do the best with what I’m given.
Today, I’m going to tell you the games I’m desperate to play, and probably will be playing when I get my first paycheck. Mainly these are games that have been released, with the exception of one:
I haven’t mentioned yet just how much I need to play Red Dead Redemption. Although it never even warranted so much as a single post during it’s development, I couldn’t help be caught up in the hype surrounding it’s release. It wasn’t the bland linear western shoot-em-up I expected. Instead, it’s a fully released free roaming western epic, in the same leagues as one of my all time favourites, Gun. What is it about the wild west that makes game developers shine?
Oh come of it. I know it’s been out for ages, and I know everyone knows who the killer is blah, blah, blah. Tell me something I don’t know. I’m a sucker for games with an incredible narrative, so leave me to play it in peace will you? Please? Yea. Shut the door on the way out while your at it. Your bitterness has made me cold.
If you’re a frequent visitor you’ll probably know how much I enjoyed Crackdown. A God-damn lot is the answer you’re looking for, and the sequel looks to be even better. This little beauty will be finding it’s way into my Xbox the day it comes out.
To reiterate, I’m a sucker for narrative driven games. Alan Wake certainly looks to be one of the better ones as well. Great atmosphere, great setting for an immersive plot. Yea, looks like my kind of game.
If there’s anything you think I’m missing out, new or old, make sure you let me know in the comments below!
I’ve actually been playing games recently. REAL GAMES. First time since around March! Here’s what I’ve been busying myself with:
Red Faction Guerrilla
Got it for the PC for only a fiver (bargain) and I’m having so much fun with it. It’s one of those games where the game play is so good it can make the game worth playing purely on it’s own. Everything else is depressingly mediocre, but who cares? You can blow anything up! How is that not appealing? Defiantly my most played at the moment.
Pokémon Heart Gold
When I’m not doing anything, I’ll play Pokémon. So far, I’ve played it for twelve hours which is… impressive to be honest especially seeing as I only bought it a fortnight ago and I still have no intention of stopping. Possibly the best handheld game I’ve played since the original. I’ve given up on the Pokéwalker though. Too much effort.
Viva Piñata / Forza Motorsport 2
Seeing as though my PS3 is still broke, I’ve taken to buying ridiculously cheap Xbox games in an effort to keep myself entertained. This week, I bought a double pack of Forza and Viva Pinata for £6. Score! Both good, but I much prefer Forza, even though I’m not a racing fan unless the drivers are… well…. Mario characters.
Team Fortress 2
I’ve finally gotten back into Tf2 again for the eight millionth time. I swear to God, every time I start playing it again it should be referred to as a relapse. Anyway, now that the Soilder / Demoman update is a distant memory the merry world for Fort warfare is back to it’s normal, utterly brilliant self.
Team Fortress 2, Valves massive cartoon shooter, turned two years (and seven months) old on Monday. For most gamers, this would mean that TF2 can now be classed as “Old”. The only ones who are normally left playing by this point are the hardcore fanatics (clan members, forum goers, modders etc.) or people who have picked the game up cheap from a bargain basket. But Team Fortress 2 still boasts a very high player count, and this made me think. Why is it still worth playing after all this time?
Not all games die after a few years. World of Warcraft grows by the day and even the original Call of Duty’s are still played fanatically by fans on the PC. You only have to look at Halo 3 to realise even console gamers can love a game for years and let’s not even get started on Diablo 2. When a game is good, it remains good. It stands the test of time and can be played every day for years and years without getting boring. That’s the theory anyway.
What specifically makes these games worth playing then? Well where to begin? There’s three reasons that I can think of (correct me if I’m wrong, that’s what the comments section is for after all) that keep gamers coming back day after day. A lot of games are popular because of a combination of these features.
The game was damn good to start with.
Diablo 2, World of Warcaft, Call of Duty… These games nailed the perfect formula. They are gaming gold. Everyone has a book you can read over and over, a film that never grows old and a game that never gets boring all because of one simple reason. They are perfect. To a lot of people, their choice is very personal. For example my all time favourite game is probably inFamous because not only is it a damn fine game but I completed it during possibly one of the best times of my life. However, 90% of people have a favourite game that is shared by millions. Warcraft. Halo. They’re classed as “best thing ever” by a lot of people, and it’s easy to see why. Let’s face it, how many people do you know that consider Shawshank their favourite film of all time? Exactly, and it’s the same for games. When something's good, it’s good for a lot of people. Therefore, they’re still played by a huge number of people four, five years after their initial release dates for the simple reason that they’re classics.
The game keeps getting better.
WoW keeps getting expansions, Halo 3 keeps getting map packs… in a modern gaming age, DLC can be shipped out every day if a developer so wishes. Whether it’s for a price or for free, developers ensure that it’s audience physically can’t stop playing a game. Regardless of whether it’s either down to people needing achievements/trophies or simply due to the fact that the game keeps on getting better, it certainly extends the lifespan of a game because let’s face it. Gamers love new content. Especially if it’s free. Oh, and when the player count drops after a couple of months? Release a retail copy with all the updates on. SORTED! Am I right Bethesda?
The modders ensure that the game keeps getting better.
People don’t play the original maps on Half Life 2: Deathmatch. They just don’t do it. Why should they? They’re boring, outdated. The killboxes on the other hand are fun. Very fun. It’s the same on Counter Strike: Source (excluding Dust). If a modding community is passionate enough about a game, it will simply never stop being played until they physically can’t do anything more with it. Take Garry’s Mod for example. Shouldn’t that have been dead by now? I’ll be honest with you, I think it would have been years ago if it wasn’t for such a creative community. The game thrives on it. An active community distributing fresh original content ensures that a game will live on until… well until the sequel comes out.
So where does this leave Team Fortress 2? I’ll tell you where. It leaves it hanging between all three. Awkwardly.
Team Fortress 2 was a classic from the word go. A flawless formula, a gameplay style unrivalled by anything else, more depth than a… really deep PC FPS and, of course, more beauty than Finding Nemo in HD. TF2 was the shit, to put it simply, and it was no wonder that when the Orange Box was first released people flocked to the world of Red Vs. Blu in their thousands. It was the freshest thing Valve had made in years, and they’d done a damn good job of it to boot.
Then the inevitable happened. People began to leave. Admittedly, they had all enjoyed themselves more than they conventionally did on other games, but left they did for that is how FPS’s work. Some stay for the glory, some stay for the fun. The latter always leave. Valve, clearly feeling very clever, then decided to pull out what it thought was it’s ace in the hole. Regular, game changing, DLC packs.
Six updates later (seven if you include the classless update) and what has became of TF2? It’s a mixed opinion. Unlike other popular games that feature regular updates such as World of Warcraft, TF2 becomes more and more distant from it’s original formula with every new addition. New weapons, new items, new maps, new game modes and of course the inclusion of hats, badges, crafting and user created content. What was originally a relaxed, fun shooter is now a frantic, ultra competitive grind fest. When I first played TF2 I was taken back by it’s pick up and play simplicity entwined with it’s deep class based system. If I was to pick up the current version for the first time, I would be confused. Very confused. TF2 is no longer a clean shaven FPS that appeals to everyone. It’s an achievement festival for MMO players. It’s became mainstream, and it was never even casual in the first place.
But does this mean that Team Fortress 2 is no longer worth your time and effort? I know a lot of people that would say yes. All of the new content is overwhelming not only for first time players but for those who just haven’t played the game in a few months and it can be said that the perfect balance between classes that was achieved before launch has been completely tipped over onto it’s back due to the inclusion of the ridiculous new weapons alone. If you were a hardcore TF2 nut before, you’re gonna hate what’s happened to your baby. Hell, even if you just loved it for what it was back in 2007, I would keep those memories and throw away Steam. TF2 is no longer something you will enjoy experiencing again.
However, if you’re the type of gamer that just likes to kick back and enjoy yourself then you’re going to love what they’ve done to the place since you were away (and if you’re a first time gamer, welcome to the nut house). First of all, the weapons are great. They really work, and they’ve all been developed in a way that means they could have replaced the originals. They’re that good (and that stylised!). Secondly, all of the new hats and achievements are not only a laugh to collect but it feels good that TF2 finally has something to achieve rather than bragging rights. Some hats carry with them a huge amount of respect, and Valve are doing a great job of just dropping in some ridiculous headgear on a regular basis for everyone to unlock. It’s fun, and at the same time there’s an extra layer of depth that’s been placed quite snugly over the top of the original version. It’s a welcome addition, regardless of what other people say, and it improves the game tenfold.Not only that, but the community have also finally found themselves, with a massive amount of servers being dedicated to some quite frankly superb map ideas. They’re certainly better than some of the arse attempts you find on other games (Yes Deathmatch, we’re looking at you). A lot of people will disagree with me, and I would completely understand if they did, but if you look at TF2 in it’s current form as something completely different to the vanilla version, then it could well give it some major competition. Primarily in the hat department.
So there you have it. My opinion on TF2 2010. Agree with me or not, Valve certainly have taken a huge risk in introducing such drastic changes on such a regular basis. It certainly makes it feel less stale than the likes of Counter Strike, but then again, how long can this last?
Until then, people will play and play until the next big thing comes along that catches their eye. At the end of the day, all great things must come to an end. Even you Warcraft. Even you.
If you enjoyed reading this article, I would love it if you could pass the link on to your mates through some method or another. Failing that, just comment below. Comments really do make me want to write more like this, and I’m sure you prefer these lovely long articles to my usual “lol look what I found” blog posts. Amrite?
LittleBigPlanet 2 was confirmed yesterday. It’s nothing really surprising, seeing as though it’s one of the biggest selling games on the PS3. However, what is surprising is the improvements the developers are promising over the original.
Media Molecule are basically saying that in LittleBigPlanet 2 you won’t be limited to making levels. Instead, you’ll be able to make entire games from scratch using the in-game editor. Sound exciting? You bet it does. Apparently one Dev has made a Sackboy version of Command and Conquer. Oh yes ladies and nerds, it’s no longer just a platformer.
I love the sound of this. Even the cynic inside of me is agreeing that Media Molecule will deliver. LittleBigPlanet is still one of the most original games I’ve played in the past five years, so I’m literally gagging for the sequel.
No, I’m not going to comment on the Playstaton Move support because I don’t care about it.
THE FAILERS: E3 Line Up Leaked.
Oh look, it’s all of the announcements from E3 on a piece of paper. I BETTER NOT POST THIS ON TWITTER! 8D
Although it’s validity is… well it’s obviously faked but it’s interesting to think that some of these could be real. inFamous 2 would be a nice surprise, as would “James Bond Game for XBLA” (Dare I say Goldeneye? It has been confirmed to exist, after all.)
However, it’s obvious that a lot of these are going to be there anyway. Gears of War 3, Guitar Hero 6 and Dead Space 2 because they’ve all be announced and it’s obvious that this is a fake because it has the Call of Duty MMO on it. I mean seriously. Someone's just collected all of the rumours from the past six months and dumped them on a piece of paper. Amateurs. If this was a proper fake it would have Mario 128 and Duke Nukem Forever on it.
THE WINNERS: Halo 2 Is Still Online
This is my equivalent of a feel good story. Basically, these fourteen gamers have kept themselves permanently connected to the Halo 2 servers in an effort to keep the game alive, even though Microsoft closed the service two weeks ago.
"A small group of dedicated Halo 2 players kept their Xbox's on so that they could enjoy the game for a while longer. (As long as we don't turn off our Xbox's, or lose connection, we can stay online.)"
"Our Xbox's have been on for nearly 13 days straight. Each day the amount of people decreased, at a rapid rate."
"A lot of us became really good friends, and it's almost like we're family now,""We will keep playing until we are all forcibly removed. It could be by Microsoft, Bungie, our Xbox's overheating, or just lagging out. Not for competition, not for a prize, but for the love, and memory of Halo 2."
Isn’t that nice? I think it’s great when people are dedicated like this.
It’s just a shame they aren’t addicted to a decent game, really.
THE GOOD ZOMBIES
Dead Rising 2 is to feature co-op play. This is win for so many reasons. Mainly because having you and a mate running round like nutters killing thousands of Zombies using anything sounds to me, like my perfect game. Not just my perfect Zombie game, but my favourite game, period. Release date’s in September. I can’t wait!
THE BAD ZOMBIES
Left 4 Dead 2 is finally getting it’s first piece of DLC, The passing, this Thursday on Xbox. It has loads of awesome features, and of course includes the original survivors. Read that again. Yes, I only said Xbox and that’s not a typo I’m afraid. It just hasn’t been confirmed for PC yet. Oh Valve. Why. What’s happened to you?
CAPCOM IS JUST GENUINELY AWESOME
I don’t even have to explain why this the best thing I’ve seen all day. Chris Redfield fighting the Hulk? Oh God yes.
I’ve just done some research and apparently Crysis 2 will run on my computer on medium to high graphics. Look at that screenshot above and yes, I don’t know how, but that is an actual in-game screenshot. Just look at that. That may as well be real. Like seriously, that may as well be a real man standing there in a suit that looks like a Transformer naked.
I’ve never been a fan of Crysis, as I mentioned in an earlier post and to my mother, but I'm intrigued by the prospect of the new one. Especially how they’ve made it so it looks better than the original but runs on worse computers… That’s magic in motion kids. Right there. “Hey! I can pull a rabbit out of a hat!”…
… “Well I can play Crysis 2 on a mid range PC and it still looks better than your Mum. So suck it.”
So the official, HD, shiny new “OMG IT’S GONNA BE RELEASED SOON SO BUY IT PLEASE” trailer for Crysis 2 was revealed today. First impressions? Well it looks like all of the other generic, alien invasion end of the world videogames out there. And by that, I mean it looks awesomely amazing.
I’m excited by this, but completely torn about which console to get it on. Do I get it on PC, and pray that I meet requirements, or do I get it on PS3 and suffer a few graphical cut backs?
Think i’ll go with Ps3.
Should probably finish the first one while I’m at it as well.
Me and my girlfriend finished Timesplitters Future Perfect on the PS2 the other day. Only took us about five hours overall, and as we finished it we decided that it was way too short. We came to the conclusion that although we love Future Perfect, Timesplitters 2 is just a far superior game. So I went out and bought it for three quid. Bargain, I thought.
Then we played it. You ever heard the expression, “Looking through the rose tinted glasses?”. Well we were looking through the rose tinted goggles. Timesplitters 2 is as hard as fecking diamond.
There’s no health! Only check point PER LEVEL and barely any ammo and decent weapons.
All in all? Either we’ve gone soft, or our memories are wrong…
I played Bioshock 2 Multiplayer for the first time today. I like it so much at the moment, that I’ve played it for three hours. In a day. That’s a lot for me.
Anyway, I like how fresh it is. There’s something incredibly good fun about running around, setting people on fire, freezing them, whacking them with a frying pan, shooting them with a high powered shotgun, hacking a turret to shoot at them and rigging a vending machine to shoot explosives at anyone who comes too close. Certainly more entertaining that Modern Warfare 2 is at that moment, anyway.
However I’m not here to review (Seeing as I'm planning a MONSTER REVIEW Week next week so keep posted), instead I'm here to bullet point off a few points that are so far hindering my experience playing the game. So listen up 2K Marin!
Why is there only one black person in Bioshock 2? Like, there’s an abundance of white people but only one black person…
It’s… an odd message.
Now I love a bit of Viral advertising, but this whole Portal fiasco that’s been buzzing around communities lately is just absolutely fascinating.
First, look here to get the low down on all of the content that the community has found since it’s update on the 1st. To those who don’t know, Portal was updated yesterday to include radios that transmitted Morse code and other creepy noises. The fantastic thing? If you translated these through a sound to image converter (and no, I don’t know what possessed someone to even TRY that) you got most of the images found in the link above. All of the other stuff they found? I have no idea.
Anyway, it’s certainly either Portal 2 or Half Life 3 which makes me very happy indeed.
Who’s ready for a good old fashioned DLC Rant?
So Bioshock 2 has been out for about a fortnight now, and already 2K are detailing the first pack of DLC. That’s fourteen days folks, and already the DLC’s on the way.
Now, normally I complain that DLC is a cheap excuse to add features to a game that the company couldn’t finish in time for release. This riles me up like nobodies business, but lately companies have been something even worse, and Bioshock 2 is a culprit of the crime.
They’ve been making the DLC during the development cycle, and leaving it out on purpose. Which I suppose is fair enough, but not when it’s a central part of the game itself. Take Assassin’s Creed 2 for example, in which two whole DNA sequences from the middle of the game have been left out in order to sell for £3 after the release date. Now, is it just me, or is that just wrong? Now look at Bioshock, which is giving you additional ranks for multiplayer and two new characters… and that’s it. That’s like leaving out two weapons on COD, as well as not letting you hit prestige 70 until you fork out another fiver.
Absolutely ridiculous.
First up, ignore everything I said the other day. February is just too much of a hectic month for me, and I’m just always busy. This explains why my Blog’s been all over the place recently.
Anyway, I’m after Bioshock 2 and I’m thinking of trading in some games in order to get it. Thing is… Eight games for one? Is it worth it?
See, I’m a hoarder so I like to have a large collection. A little bit of me dies every time I trade in one, never mind eight.
So trade or save? Answers on a postcard.
Or, the comment section. Your choice.
I’ve went from loving Assassin’s Creed 2 to hating it with a passion fairly quickly.
I’m trying to get a platinum trophy.
Which means I need all the feathers.
I have 98.
I can’t find the last two.
FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!
I haven’t played Uncharted 2 in a while, so I thought I’d have a mess around on multiplayer. Little did I know that it had been invaded by characters from other PlayStation games.
Every match I went on had either Cole from inFamous or a Chimera from Resistance running around. No others mind, just those two characters, which I found a little odd. I mean why not Zeke for Gods sake! It’s Zeke! I love Zeke!
Anyway I can’t really decide whether I like these or not. In some ways I think they’re a pretty good idea. The Resistance and the Killzone skins fit perfectly, as the heroes look like… well heroes and the villains match the mercenary/creature criteria fairly nicely as well. However, the inFamous skins rub me up the wrong way… It’s the electricity running up Coles arms. It’s just… wrong. It clings to them like a blue spiders web and just doesn’t move. They may as well have just left him as normal. Would have looked better.
Overall, these skins aren’t really adding anything to the overall game other than the novelty value. Kudos to Naughty Dog for adding them, but personally I won’t be getting excited until I see Kratos throwing a grenade off Snake’s forehead.
So the BETA’s for Bad Company 2 and Alien Vs. Predator came out today.
I’ve spent all day downloading them and just can’t be bothered to play them.
So I’ll ask you. Any good?
I’m coming up to the end of Assassins Creed 2 now and… I’ve enjoying it. In fact, I’m enjoying it so much…. that I don’t want it to end.
What has this world came too?
I’m not saying that I’m now a devoted follower of all things Assassins Creed, mind you. I still maintain that the first game is an absolute horrific nightmare of a game. The sequel just gets everything right this time around, ‘tis all.
Review soon. Well I say that. I still need to review inFamous and God of War.
So my Xbox Live ran out today, which means that tomorrow I'll be trading in Modern Warfare 2.
