Happy Halloween!

In a complete deviation from last years top five scariest games, this year I present to you a.... general blog about Halloween! Still, it's going to be all about Halloween in general instead of just scary stuff.

Team Fortress 2 received it's first seasonal update on Thursday! For this weekend only, players can access a brand new Halloween map (which includes exploding pumpkins and a ghost), get two new hats and unlock five special achievements! Personally I love it. It's probably only of the first games that Isn't an MMO that I've seen receive special seasonal content. Not only that, but it's packed full of the attention to detail that Valve are so famous for. When a player taunts, he does the thriller. When you die, you drop a bag of candy. When you see the ghost you run in fear, unable to shoot. All the health pickups are bags of sweets or chocolate bars. There's skulls and pumpkins and little ghosts hanging everywhere. It's just... Well. It once again proves that TF2 is a labour of love and just how dedicated Valve are to the fans. All I can say? Please PLEASE let there be a Christmas update!


Last Halloween, I can't say I relished in the enjoyment of playing any horror games. In fact, most of my Halloween night was spent playing the Mirrors Edge demo and Defcon (which I suppose is creepy, considering I put it as number five on my scariest games ever!) while eating cheap chocolate and ignoring the door...

This year however It's different for tonight I have a plan. I'm going to submerse myself into the quite frankly terrifying Dead Space, before moving on to the rather grisly Left 4 Dead, and after a quick run through on Doom 2 I'm going to brave.... Tycoon City New York! Oh lord I hear you cry! Surely not! The materialistic values of modern day American society which subsequently burn the American dream to an unidentifiable crippling shard are so present in it's bleak and decaying world that surely it won't be long before you either break down on the floor weeping in fear or simply kill yourself to escape the nightmare?

My reply? No. And that Joke was too nerdy to be funny.


Happy Halloween guys!

Ingame Blabbering

I was playing Mirrors Edge today and I realised that Merc was just asking Faith loads of random questions and she just wasn't answering. And... I liked it. I think it was certainly more realistic than most games where you're character's getting shot at from every possible angle and he's reciting the entire works of Shakespeare (It's even worse on things like Gears of War where the persons not even there). It was just a welcome touch, a more realistic touch at that, to think that she's not responding all the time because she's concentrating and in a way it's almost as if Merc's asking himself the questions.

I do like the Voice acting on Mirrors Edge. It's not great, but it's certainly not bad either. Really reflects the stylistic features of the whole game, this sort of laid back attitude to everything but also this... I dunno almost obsessive desperation to uncover the truth. Brilliant stuff.

You know, I think I'll do a long blog tomorrow on Voice acting.

Mirrors Edge: The Return

Now as pretty much everyone knows, I love Mirrors Edge. It's great, so great in fact that I've finished it about twice. Which for me is rare. Very rare. I on;y ever finish great games more than once.

Now as you all know I got a copy on the PC and I've been playing it a rather lot these past two days and I've once again realised how damn good it is, but I also realised WHY I , and everyone else who enjoys it, keeps coming back for more.

Now I understand that Mirrors Edge is short but that's part of my point here, and my point is there is no greater thrill than being able to pelt through the whole game seamlessly with none of the exploration aspects of the first play through and especially none of the wrong turns, the falls, the bloody frustration... Sorry I was having a flashback of my first play through of the atrium level... But anyway it's just so much fun, it's incredible.

Also, I was playing the second chapter, and as I jumped down the side of the building, sliding across the glass I realised that I'd mistimed my jump and was going to miss my next one onto the nearby building and I just thought "Shit... Shit I'm going to fall... I'm going to fall and die!" And even though I've played this level a million times on the speed runs and time trials I panicked, and I just felt the same rush of adrenaline I felt the first time I ever played it. Proof, that this game never gets old.

Irony. Pure Irony

Although I'm a fan of the Xbox, I do enjoy taking the piss out of it. Yea It's harsh, because lets face it, not a lot of people like the Playstation but I do it anyway mainly to annoy my friend because (and I'm sorry to say this Ryan) he's an Xbox fanboy. So while I'm bragging about trivial things such as disk space and processors, and he retaliates with points such as better games and a better online I always get him with what can only be described as every Xbox owners worst nightmare. Red Ring of Death.

Like the flu, the yellow pages or Graham Norton it happens to everyone. It happened to me, and It's happened to him and everytime I used that argument he never had anything to say back to me. Well, nothing I'd feel comfortable about typing on my girlfriends computer anyway. 

But then last night, after my New Year celebrations, I decided to see if I could clock Mirrors Edge as I was already up to chapter 6 out of 8, so I thought I'd be able to do it. So I booted it up, started playing and then it crashed. It didn't bother me at first, because I presumed it was the disc but after four attempts on Mirrors Edge, one attempt on LittleBigPlanet (the game wouldn't load) and then an attempt on COD5 (again, the game wouldn't load) I panicked. I went straight to the Sony EU forums, and posted my problem. This morning I managed to get Mirrors Edge working, but I'm still worried about whether it's a hard drive problem.

Anyway, the whole point of this story is that when I told my friend last night, he gave a fantastic reply that I thought would be perfect for today's post.

"Definitely Sony's way of saying Happy New Year mate."

Too Many Games!

I'm currently experiencing something that can only be described as a "Brain aneurysm" caused purely by the sheer amount of games I have to play. Honestly, I got three for Christmas, bought two on Boxing day and today decided (and trust me, this decision is so hypocritical that my friend actually scoffed) to go out and buy Call Of Duty: World At War even though I've been slagging it off since the day it was announced. But hey! I did the same with the PS3 and I couldn't live without mine now.

So, over the next few days I wont have anything specific to talk about unfortunately, so I'm just going to be giving you random bursts of pure 100% opinion on what I'm currently playing or have heard over the grape vine that is my many friends (and the Internet) 

To start off, LittleBigPlanet online is fantastic. Ten times better than what I expected. Community maps are win. Utter win, and playing online with friends is nothing short of perfection.

Mirrors Edge has been holding my interest, but unfortunately it looks like it wont for very much longer. I'm already half way through.

Finally,  Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters is an amazing little game. I was just playing it for like an hour. Well good.

Christmas Goodies!!

So did everyone have a good Christmas? I know I did! Amongst other things (like a 26” full HD TV) I finally got my hands on LittleBigPlanet, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Mirrors Edge and Prince of Persia. Basically, these will probably be the games I’ll be blogging about most so if you don’t like then… sorry? So, first opinions:

 

Great game. I loved the demo and a friend constantly ranted and raved about it for weeks so I’m glad I can finally play it. It’s smooth, uncomplicated and the graphics are sweet. Overall a very good game, but even at the point I’m up to it feels like there’s something missing…

My expectations of this game were quite low in all honesty. The first Far Cry and Crysis certainly aren't on my top ten list I can tell you, so I wasn’t expecting anything great.. But surprise surprise, this turns out to be a fantastic shooter. I’m not far through it, but it WORKS. It’s brilliant. The fire is superb, the graphics are amazing and there’s a lot of depth even from the start. I’m especially impressed with the little things like pulling bullets out from your leg and fixing cars. Well good.

In all fairness as soon as I paid £25 for this yesterday I thought I’d made a mistake. As I was loading, I kept getting what can only be described as Nam flashbacks of the god awful two thrones and the emoness of Warrior Within. I just couldn’t see how this game could be good after those two installments… But what I didn’t remember was the fantastic Sands of Time which is what this game can easily be compared to. It’s fresh, it’s original. It’s fun to play which I didn’t expect. It’s a little bit clunky to start off with but once you get into the habit of it (about 15 minutes in) it becomes something great.

 

Perfection. I can’t say anything about it that you won’t have all heard before. It’s just a work of art. It all makes sense. To me, this is a no brainer of a game. If you don’t own it yet, beware. If I see you in the street I’ll simply look at you, shake my head and walk away.

 

Color, Stephen Fry, Creativity, Sack Boys, Kratos Sack boys, multiplayer, trophies. Heaven.

The Art and Jumping

Now I've seen a hell of a lot of Game Adverts before but this is clearly the best. Gears Of War 2 may not have the potential to be Game of the year in my eyes, but this certainly the greatest game trailer ever made. Period.

Apart from that, I played the Mirrors Edge Demo yesterday. It was amazing, possibly one of the most original games I've played since Portal. It just works so well. One of my main concerns was that it would become stale and repetitive due to a faulty or broken control system but it's as fluent as you would expect. It's definitely one to look out for this Christmas!

What WAS the last great game?

A friend of mine struck a conversation topic I seem to have been avoiding as of late, last night. He said to me "What WAS the last great game?". Instantly, being me, I said Bioshock. 

But then I thought myself, hang on. I got Bioshock in September... Surely I've played better games since then. Well the Orange Box is probably my most played game of all time, Team Fortress 2 especially. But why didn't I say that straight away? Surely that must be the obvious choice? Well, thinking of it in hindsight, it didn't move me as much as Bioshocks story did. There wasn't as much thrill as exploring rapture for the first time. (It pains me to say that, it honestly does. But Bioshock beats Orange box by a mere millimetre) 

So then I pondered some more. I got loads of games for Christmas, one of them must have beat Bioshock and the Orange box? Surely it hasn't been almost 11 months since the last truly enjoyable game was released? I got Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Mysims, Metroid Prime 3 and Sim City DS for Christmas. Not one lived up to expectations, and to be honest not one gripped me enough. Crysis got boring very quickly, as did Unreal Tournament 3. As for Mario Galaxy, well it was fun but it was just another Mario Game. 

It seems to me that the games market is becoming stale. Super Mario Galaxy was the first indication. It was meant to be a completely new Mario experience. It was just Mario. In space. Unreal Tournament 3 was just UT2004 with a healthy dose of LIQUID MUSCLE. And It was also, rather boring compared to the others. 

"But what about the others!?!" I hear you cry. "What about Grand Theft Auto 4? Metal Gear Solid 4? Surely these are sure choices!". Well, no. GTA4 is GTA3 in essence, but I can't argue that it's not a good game. Personally I love it, and I'm currently playing through it for the first time and enjoying myself immensely. But it's nothing groundbreaking, nothing immense. It's a good game. But not a great game. Oh, and Metal gear Solid 4? I haven't finished it yet, but It's still the same formula as the others. 

So now I've established there hasn't been a great game in around 11 months. That makes me rather cynical to be honest. Especially with games such as Resident Evil 5, Left 4 Dead, Little big planet, Tomb Raider Underworld and Mirrors Edge coming out. Will these games live up to expectations? Will they manage to make me feel an emotional connection to the game like Bioshock did? We'll have to see, because right now I don't even want to think about it.

Oh, and I didn't mention about Spore. I'll talk about that tomorrow.