Five Things That Have Been On My Mind Today

1) Goddamn Valve, you are very good at making promo videos and launch trailers. I take my hat off to you, fine sirs and ladysirs. However, I have no intention of playing The Passing until the weekend. I apologise.

2) Why is Perfect Dark so goddamn hard on the… hardest difficulty? It took me three hours of solid playing to get past the first level. I hate old games, yet love them in equal measure. Damn you Rare.

3) Why isn’t Pokémon free? Also, why haven’t governments checked this game for mind control? Why do I want it so much? It’s embarrassing!

4) Should I put Ads on my blog? I suppose it would look a little less flash, but it’s free money and I like that idea.

5) Why hasn’t Sony came over and fixed my PS3 yet? It seems that the gaming God’s have forbidden me from ever finishing GTA4.

Perfect Dark: CLOCKED

Finally finished the remake of Perfect Dark today and phwooooarrr is it good. Like seriously, it’s lick your lips in ecstasy good. Well, the level design is perfect, the music is spot on, the weapons are completely innovate and really fun to use and it has that lovely Rare fluidity about it which just makes it fantastic to pick up and play every time.

However, the story is absolute shite. There’s nine chapters, with about three missions in each, and I have no clue whatsoever as to what was going on. Seriously. I could make a rough guess, but I’d literally be guessing. It’s so badly crafted it’s laughable. Also, the voice acting is really terrible as well. Perfect Dark was unfortunately made in a generation that didn’t take things like voice acting too seriously, therefore Joanna Dark may have the body and the talent of a international super secret agent, but she has the voice of a fourteen year old girl which is just… ew.

As a remake though, it’s extremely faithful to the original game.

Anyway, I’m certainly going to pick up a copy of Perfect Dark Zero this weekend, just ‘cos I can innit. Mainly because I want to know why she’s ginger in this one but brunette in the original. Also my PS3 is still dead and I need something else to play.

Oh, and Valve did confirm the release date for Left 4 Dead 2 DLC on the PC yesterday. It’s coming out tomorrow for free. Linkage!

Old Games Are HARD!

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…

Perfect Dark HD + Early ‘90s FPS’s.

So, I won a competition today by saying something witty and my prize was a free copy of Perfect Dark HD, the Xbox Live Arcade remake of the cult classic N64 shooter from the 90’s.

I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never played the original. Yes, I know, blasphemy etc. I just never got around to it. So, I figured, this would be a perfect opportunity for me to play it, finally, after all this time. First impressions are it’s amazing. Really good fun.

Now, that isn’t my point. My point is this. My God. How much have FPS’ changed in the past ten years please?

I was always a big fan of Goldeneye and Timesplitters in my early teens (because lets face it, before Infinity Ward even drew a picture of a gun, Rare / Free Radical were masters of the genre), but I honestly think it’s been so long since I’ve played a classic FPS that I haven’t had time to look back and just think “Woah… this is so… basic.”

You know what? Basic is good. It’s nice that I’m given three objectives, a gun and just told to go do the mission. There’s no freedom. There’s no cut scenes midway through levels of people dramatically revealing plot points to me, even though I know for a fact that in order to reach the conclusion I’m just going to have shoot more people, and it’s ESPECIALLY nice not having the option of being able to aim down my scope! Because lets face it, the second we have that option we seriously exploit it. Also, whatever happened to Guns with multiple functions? You know, pistols with grenade launchers. That kind of thing. I miss them!

I think it’s just nice to sit back and go back to basics. Play a game that started it all. I’m not saying this is better than Bioshock, or Call of Duty. It’s just a good old fashioned, incredibly fun and refreshingly simple game that I’m enjoying playing at the moment.

Also, is it just me, or does everyone get stuck on every single level when playing these games?

Online Gaming? Peh!

You know what? Sod online gaming. Nothing can ever beat a two player session on Timesplitters Future Perfect. 5 minutes, Thief and Mexican mission.

Pure, classic fun.