An Offer I Can't Refuse

Ok so this has been circulating the Internet for a while now but, man this is such a good deal. Two games that look quite frankly amazing (I'm a firm believer that Uncharted 2 will be game of the year) in a bundle that kicks arse.

So getting!

Gears Of.... Cancer?

Me and a friend were playing through the original Gears of War today on split screen co-op. I kept dying and was joking on about how he must get irritated playing co-op games with me (We regularly play them online and offline). He turned to me, and in all seriousness, said:

"Playing games with you is like contracting a form of cancer"

I wept.

Beyond Good and Evil

I mentioned this in passing yesterday, and couldn't believe that I've never mentioned it before today. Beyond Good and Evil is not just one of the most underrated games ever made. It is THE most underrated game ever made.

As wikipedia so wonderfully sums up the basic story:

Beyond Good and Evil takes place on the futuristic planet of Hillys, where a mix of human,anthropomorphic animal, alien, and robotic species co-exist. The planet is under siege by alien DomZ forces. The DomZ abduct beings on Hillys, and either drain their life force for their own, or implant them with spores that convert them into creatures that work for the DomZ. A militant force called the "Alpha Sections" emerges to defend the populace. However, the Alpha Sections have a mysterious secret hiding beneath their helmets. An underground group ofjournalists, the IRIS Network, attempt to uncover the secrets of the DomZ and the Alpha Sections and expose the truth to the population of Hillys.

You follow Jade, a photo journalist / adoptive parent / all out wonderwoman who joins the underground IRIS network as mentioned above. What follows is one of the most magnificent stories ever told in a videogame and an experience that you'll never forget. This game just oozes with charm, which is just what you'd expect from it's writer and developer Michel Ancel (that's the creator of Rayman, the developer of the fantastic King Kong and more recently the Raving Rabbids series) . It's one of those great, beautiful game that you never forget. It's an experience, a life affirming at that. You walk away feeling.... fulfilled, at peace. Yes, the gameplay can at times be frustrating and some of the sections are bland but give me a world that can combine fascists space oppression and talking animals, blended within a narrative surrounding photojournalism and religious connotations and I'll not only eat my hat but my shoes as well.

If you haven't played this game, and I presume a lot of you fall into this category, get yourself to eBay and be enlightened. Especially seeing as the sequel is currently in development.

Assasins Creed

This had so much potential. So, so much potential. A sandbox game set during the Third Crusade, in which the player must assassinate one person in a crowd of hundreds? Where the player could leap from building to building, clamber up them like a male Lara Croft and perform THAT leap of a huge tower? Freedom, brutality and beauty. It had everything. Then Ubisoft added more, and it was ruined.

Oh yea guys, it was a science fiction story. Unlocking the memories of the characters ancestors, evil cooperation.... yea you get it. Why? Because you've played it, read it and watched it a million times before. As if this wasn't bad enough, it then became an excuse for invisible walls, to move the narrative on without explanation and to get away with the fact that a man who grew up in Jerusalem in 1191  mysteriously has a thick American accent. No lads, that's not called a clever plot device, that's called laziness.

I still stand by the fact that this game could have been something really special, but instead it just became another run of the mill action game. 

Ubisoft? A word of warning. You so much as let the developers of this drivel near Beyond Good and Evil 2 and I'll be hunting you down. All of you. Even Jade Raymond. 

Even Jade Raymond.

A Little, Slightly Less Bigger, Planet

So today Stephen Fry said that he'd been voice acting for LittleBigPlanet on the PSP. Anyone else ridiculously exited over this portable version of an already well established classic?

Thoughts on a postcard. Or you know, if you're lazy, in the comments box.

Christ, I Suck At Games

I started Fallout 3 again this morning, like from the start. Within an hour, I had passed the point I had been horrendously stuck on since Christmas in less than an hour and a half.

I that doesn't prove how bad I am at games, I don't know what will :P

Oh They're Gonna Have To Glue You Back Together... IN HELL

Team Fortress 2 is on the top of my list lately of games I'm enjoying. I've been focusing on playing servers that are dedicated to a vanilla rotation, or ones that are 2fort only. I've also just been laying as classes that have been left untouched. Mainly the Demoman and Solider. 

I want the old days back D: