So Call of Duty: Black Ops was announced today. It’s being released next November, it’s being developed by Treyarch, It’s set in Vietnam…Blah, Blah, Blah.
We can all assume it’ll have a rank based multiplayer mode, with custom classes, perks and DLC maps. We’re all positive it’ll have an “Award Winning”, “In-Depth” story and of course it’ll have one famous actor/actress doing some voice work.
Thing about Activision is, it has a habit of making really original IP’s stale by releasing them every ten minutes. Guitar Hero especially.
I feel sorry for Bungie…
So the Gears of War 3 trailer was released. It had a load of people dead and left as nothing but ash, standing screaming etc. Fairly cool. Then Dom comes running through them looking like Bear Grills made a baby with an actual bear. He comes running through all these dead ash people, just smashing them up etc. and then the locust come and they shoot and… you get the idea. It’s Gears of War. What else do you expect. So far so Epic, in all sense of the word.
Then two really strange things happen.
1) Marcus turns up with short sleeves, making him look like someone advertising a gay cruise to Pompeii.Still, at least I now know what makes a muscle man look instantly gay. Short sleeves! Who would have guessed?
2) A woman turns up. With a gun. Yea you read that right. She turns up, with a gun and starts shooting locust. No she’s not Anya, and no she doesn’t have huge man shoulders. Still, there’s going to be some discussion amongst the internet as to whether she’s a stereotypical video gaming female (i.e. there will be a point where she has her chesticles on display in a completely impractical situation) or so mega butch she may as well be Cole in a blonde wig. Actually… well Epic? Please? For me?
I like it. In fact I love it. Looks to be more of the same but there’s so much potential for some REALLY good storytelling. Take Dom, he looks like a broken man. Beard out of control, his hairline receding. He seems clumsy, and when he falls and sees the locust raise his gun? He really doesn’t care. I’m probably looking too much into this, but this looks to be possibly game of the year 2011.
Trailers below.
You know when you see something and you remember it but…. not really anything specific about it?
Well someone mentioned an old PS1/PC game called Heart of Darkness to me the other day and this happened. A friend of mine had it on the PS1 when I was like, seven, and I used to adore watching him play it. So I hunted down some videos and Youtube and my God. It was an absolute GEM of a title! Beautifully inspired pre-rendered environments that you could interact with, a really dark and sinister plot and of course, some pretty classic side scrolling action (albeit Abes Oddesy).
I am so hunting this down.
So I’ve been playing League of Legends (or LoL, as it’s often called, which I just find fantastic) quite obsessively these past few days. A friend recommended it to me on the basis that it was “very similar” to the cult Warcraft 3 mod Defence of the Ancients. To be honest, the only reason I gave it a download was because it sounded a bit like Warcraft 3 and… well it’s free to play.
I’ve been graciously rewarded for my choice. League is a very simple, yet addictive game that works like this. The player picks a character to play as, or a “Summoner” as they’re referred to in game, which is basically a hero character that you play as. All of these characters have four magic abilities and a basic attack that varies from punch or cast. Then you’re placed into a game with 9 others (5 Vs. 5 games) and the game begins. The basic premise is each base is defended by towers and waves of units which guard the main paths leading to your base. In the centre of each base is a building that must be destroyed to win the game.
So the premise is deviously simple, yet in practice it becomes this surreal game of fantasy tug of war. See, these towers are pretty powerful so you end up relying on the waves of units to act as human shields in order to push forward. Your summoner can level up to a maximum of level 18 in a single game, gaining more powerful levels of their abilities as you progress (as well as gold to purchase ability boosts) which means that what starts off as a quite relaxing game of click- to – kill – minions ends up as a furious war between ten completely different magical beings, all of them mercilessly slaughtering each other in an effort to just… destroy… that… one last… tower…
It becomes a death match, near the end. Once you hit level 5 it’s no longer about killing the minions. It’s about getting a positive kill streak by chasing down enemy summoners for a huge XP boost, as well as attempting to aid your minions is progressing… you get the idea. It’s a simple concept, but strikingly complex in practice.
Of course, the beautiful thing about this game isn’t the fresh and addictive nature of it’s game play or the quite frankly gorgeous visual style. No, it’s all in the fact that you don’t have to pay a penny to play it. Sure, there are additional buffs and enhancements you can buy with real money, but if you play enough games online you’ll earn enough “Riot points” to acquire them without ever having to touch your debit card. Even better, is the fact that the developers bring in a new set of summoners every wednesday in order to keep the game fresh and exciting. If you become attached to a summoner, you have the option of purchasing him or her (with money or riot points), meaning he won’t disappear from your list of available characters come next wednesday.
In conclusion? I’m in love, and addicted. There’s so much more I’ve missed out, like a powerful ranking system, fresh maps, character skins, runes. The list goes on and on. This is as good as it’s going to get for free to play games people, so I’d highly recommend you download right now.
I got God of War Collection about a week ago, and I love it. It’s so… uncaring. I think that’s the best way to put it. It’s relentless in how much it throws at you. This is a very difficult game indeed.
I say uncaring, because you have to go for ages without save points or even health for that matter. Some minor bosses release health if you kill them in certain ways, and often that’s the only way to progress with relative ease. By killing a huge enemy in a complex and difficult way. It’s insane!
Great game though. I’m about half way through the first one and enjoying it immensely.
So here it is. Did you bring your jacket? Can I get you a drink? It’s the first annual game of the year awards for 2009! Last year I didn’t bother, but this year I’m making it a tradition. I’ve devised seven categories and within each of them are the games that have left a mark on me this year.If you disagree with any of these selections, please leave a comment and tell me what you would have picked and I’ll do a further blog on what you all thought in a few days time. So here we go. The first award.
From it’s opening cut scene to it’s climatic conclusion, inFamous is gripping in it’s narrative, addictive in it’s game play and beautiful in it’s entirety. Criminally overlooked by the overall community as a “Prototype Clone”, inFamous is one of the most compelling and overall upsetting games I've played in years. The human elements of pain, isolation and corruption are presented on such a scale that it literally leaves you feeling… well rather depressed by the end of the ride. But it’s worth it, and no matter what path you choose, the conclusion will leave your jaw hanging wide open every time.
When I first heard about Arkham Asylum I didn’t even give it a second thought. I simply passed it off as another superhero action kids game that would clog up the shelves and sell by the bucket loads, even though it’d be about as fun as drowning. But when I played it, my whole perspective changed. This game is huge. This game is a masterpiece. This game could well be the runner up for my overall game of the year. I’ve never played a game that takes a franchise and exceeds expectations so much. The characterisation is perfect, the atmosphere is heavy and dark, the locations are bitter-sweet and the narrative slots very neatly and snugly within the Batman canon. I would even go as far as to recommend this over watching the Dark Night. It really is THAT good.
I bought this out of dedication. Same reason I bought Spore and Sim City Societies. I expected something abysmal, or the same as Sims 2 but with better graphics. What I got was the definitive Sims experience. If I could change one thing this year, it would be that I played more of the Sims 3. What appears to be the same old game, is actually a completely new game built entirely from scratch. Gone is the frustration, the difficulty and the tedium of the past incarnations. Here is a game that really does excel in every department, and I’d recommend this game to anyone with a brain cell. If anything, this game proves that maybe the world could survive without a Mr. Will Wright and his “Spores”.
To quote Chris in the opening scenes of Resident Evil 5, “Sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth fighting for…”. When it comes to Resident Evil, I can’t help but know exactly what he means. What is it worth fighting for? The desperate struggle to try and convince old fans that it’s worth playing the new incarnations. The impossible task of trying to educate newcomers that the old games are equally as pleasing (if not on the eye, then at least on the narratives and gameplay). The equally difficult task of trying to convince myself at the beginning of the year that Resident Evil 5 was going to be something worth fighting for. You know what? It is worth it, because Resident Evil 5 has given me 53 blissful hours of gameplay , two completions and a whole lot of fun. I adore this game, and you should too.
Slow at first, but as soon as it hooks you it simply will not let go. Give me a world that drips with as much satire, oozes with as much depth and shines with as much breathtaking beauty and I will eat my own face. Fallout 3 isn’t a game. It’s an experience, and it’s one that you will not soon forget. The reason it’s on this list? Because with the release of the new DLC packs this year, it was impossible to not be drawn back into the capital wasteland.
If you haven’t already read my gushing review to this game, then you’re unaware on how much of an impact this game had on me. The world of Nathan Drake became perfect in this title, and it is the best game ever made. That’s a fact. This game will make you laugh out loud, it will make you shift forward to the edge of your seat in actual real tension more times that I wish to mention and most of all? You will walk away with a feeling of complete satisfaction. The same feeling you had when you first saw Star Wars, The Godfather, Fight Club or The Shawshank Redemption. I priceless piece of entertainment, all yours for £30.
This game impressed me in two ways. Firstly, it’s so tongue in cheek it’s entire face is bleeding. Secondly, it’s fun. This game is pure, 100% fun. You will sit down, you will play, you will enjoy it. It’s entertainment in it’s purest form and it’s an absolute corker of a title. If you’ve never bought a game from the PSN before, then this is a damn good start.
There we have it. The first annual Original Dungeon Keeper awards for 2009. Now all that’s left to say is Happy New Year, and I hope you all have a great 2010.
I come home early from college on a Wednesday. This unfortunately means, I’m forced to ride the peasant wagon for about half an hour. And today, I left my earphones at home….
So there I was. Riding the bus. Listening to nothing more than this 8 year old scream incomprehensible nonsense, interspersed only with a grating laugh that made me want to repeatedly slam my head against the seat in front of me… and I was bored. So bored in fact, that I wished (rather specifically for some reason) that I had a HTC Hero phone with the G2 operating system on it. Why? Well I’ll tell you why. Be patient.
See, this fabulous little invention is like the iPhone for people like me (i.e. Skint teenagers) and let’s you do the whole Internet thing that all phones do these days (apart from mine. This may surprise you, but phones aren’t really my forte. I only just got a camera on my phone, for example) and at that moment in time I wanted nothing more than to just sit and go on Facebook, Twitter and maybe (browser permitting) nFortress but I couldn’t. Because I was stuck on this metal cage of hell.
But then I thought… wait a minute. If I had said phone, then by the time I got home I’d have exhausted Facebook and Twitter…. and then what would I do for an hour once I got in? I would have already sorted out all my notifications and read the latest Tweets. I would have replied to all the latest posts on the forum and read all the latest news on a variety of news sites (such as CVG. Not BBC, don’t be daft). Then it occurred to me. This phone would quench my need for entertainment for half an hour, and then that would be it. I would go home and I would sit and I would be bored. This is all that technology does these days! It doesn’t keep us from being bored anymore because the bastard things are so efficient in their purpose that you’re left with more free time than before you got it.
Hence, why I sit and do this I suppose. Games on the Playstation 1 used to take about ten minutes to load up before you could play them. Nowadays I can get onto the online section of Call of Duty 6 within less than 48 seconds, and I haven’t made that up I timed myself. 48 seconds people. Within that time I can be searching for an online game. Hell, within the next twenty seconds I could be playing. It’s ridiculous!
So there you have it. My rant on why technology is shit.
Also, when I was on the bus an advert came on a screen that for the past ten minutes had been displaying adverts for bus passes and I absolutely crapped myself. Since when did that happen?
Can anyone suggest any ways of getting into the Christmas spirit? I'm really not in the mood this year for some reason, despite the fact that I'm drowning myself in Christmas music and my house is so full of decorations it's slowly pushing me into a festive coma.
All in all, Modern Warfare 2 (I'm getting sick of typing that) is a fantastic game worthy of it's global acknowledgement as a landmark within this years release schedule. All though it's not game of the year in my eyes, (Uncharted 2 beats it by a long shot) it's still a very important game.
I started playing the new (ish) Prince of Persia game again today. I got it just after Christmas last year and never really got that far on it (about twenty minutes in i think).
Wha... Wha... Wha...
Thanks to your feedback, we are excited to announce the God of War Collection for this Holiday Season. Now fans and newcomers to the series can experience the epic journey of God of War and God of War II in 720p HD form. Both titles have been remastered with anti-aliased graphics, running at 60 frames per second for a smooth gameplay experience, only on the PS3 system. Additionally, the Blu-ray Disc compilation will bring the PlayStation Network (PSN) trophy support to the franchise for the very first time.
I bought S.T.A.L.K.E.R (feck it, I can't be arsed with the Dots anymore) about a year ago on one of those two for one deals at Game and for some reason never bothered to play it. I go with the whole "My PC couldn't run it" but it could, just not on full graphics.
