Archive for the ‘General Gaming’ Category
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
This post contains spoilers.
When launching the single player campaign for the first time, Activision’s Modern Warfare 2 warns you of a level deemed uncomfortable and controversial, giving you the option to opt out of playing it without any effect on the story or your GamerScore. I’ve not played too many games where I’ve been directly impacted by something harrowing happening in-game, and I certainly wanted to savour the full Modern Warfare experience. Needless to say, I decided to go ahead and play it.
The controversial level is upon you sooner than expected, with the third level (if you have indeed agreed to play it) being the culprit. I have to admit, a sick (or simply curious?) part of me was eager to specifically see what it was Activision were talking about, and when I nonchalantly swaggered out of an elevator with my comrades and proceeded to calmly slaughter every innocent civilian in sight, I knew this was it. Yet I wasn’t shocked.
What did get me, however, was the eerie way in which my men mercilessly meandered through a pile of dead bodies, picking off every scampering civilian in sight. And I was expected to do the same. I came across an injured man slouched against a gory wall, his legs spread out on the floor, drowning in a pool of his own blood, his life slowly slipping away. Should I finish him off? Or should I leave him to suffer simply so I can avoid the bloodstains of yet another innocent civilian on my hands? You see, for those who are reading this and ignorant of spoilers, you are in fact playing an undercover mission where you are required to get close and gain the trust of a nasty Russian; the guy responsible for this massacre. So whilst you are temporarily part of a team of ruthless killers, you are of course the good guy. Yet I lined my crosshair up with his head, both in keeping with my undercover disguise and also wishing to help him out of his misery, and I ended it for him.
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Tags: Modern Warfare 2, No Russian
Posted in General Gaming | 27 Comments »
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Designed to realistically portray modern infantry combat, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising – the second in the OpFlash series – is a first person, squad based, tactical shooter. Are you trying to turn me on?! Seriously though, bundle the aforementioned elements into one game and you have a product I’m very interested in. Granted OpFlash hasn’t come about at an optimal time for a military shooter. Modern Warfare 2 is just around the corner, and most gamers are biding their time, not to mention sealing their wallets, until the 10th of November is upon us. But many are missing one minute detail; Dragon Rising isn’t trying to be Call of Duty. It’s a different breed of game altogether, but is it worth a look-in?
The entirety of Dragon Rising takes place on the Japanese island of Skira, with your squad of 4 – including yourself – advancing through open terrain. There’s virtually no character development, so at no point will you bond with your allies as you endure the hardships of military life, nor will you understand the background or history of the soldier you control. In fact, in a game with zero cutscenes between campaigns (yes, you read that right), emotional attachment seems to have taken a backseat entirely. Yes, Dragon Rising really is all about the apathetic side of war. This will definitely be a problem for some, especially on the harder difficulties where voice acting is completely absent from the game leaving you with little connection to those around you, but OpFlash requires your mind to be on other matters. Get the mission done.
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Tags: Codemasters, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Mung, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, Rainbow Six: Vegas
Posted in General Gaming | 4 Comments »
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
First of all, a big thanks to Matt Brett for hooking me up with Trials HD. One of the things Matt pointed out about Trials was how frustrating the Achievements were. Seeing as I love the challenge certain Achievements bring, I didn’t expect Trials HD to be that taxing. I was wrong. But it’s not necessarily in a bad way, though you may disagree.
With every game comes a treacle of easy Achievements; ones worth little that are unlocked by completing the simplest of tasks. In Skate you hop aboard your deck, move a few meters, and you’ve unlocked your first Achievement. In Brothers of Arms, you insert the disc into your tray on the 17th of September, and you unlock an Achievement. You haven’t had to work for these – they’re just spoon fed G’s. Trials doesn’t have many of those, and in fact most of the Achievements require a lot of blood, some sweat, but most of all, copious amounts of tears.
It’s one of those games where, much like Guitar Hero, you approach it for the first time and, upon diving into the harder difficulties, believe it to be impossible. Which isn’t great if you’re intending on unlocking all of the Achievements, as you’re awarded for completing every track on Hard and Extreme. Trials HD definitely requires skill to unlock certain Achievements, but it’s the kind of skill that’s developed over a period of time simply from playing and familiarising yourself with the tracks. Again, similar to Guitar Hero. Having said that, I’ve obviously not being playing enough considering I still have two to unlock. Either that or I suck.
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Tags: Trials HD, Xbox Live Arcade
Posted in General Gaming | 18 Comments »
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
Hype, huh, yeah. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Hype is generally considered to be testament to how good a game really is. So, for example, the more column inches a game receives leading up to its release, and the more buzz that surrounds it or the bigger the marketing campaign, the better the game is expected to be. However, I’ve always subscribed to the train of thought that hype can typically be the downfall of what is actually a decent game. For that reason I’ve never bought into hype. I generally approach any game with a lack of expectation, and for that reason I’m rarely disappointed.
Leading up to the release of a game I’m particularly interested in, I’ll deliberately avoid previews and development reports of how the game is panning out. I’ll inevitably hear or see tidbits as I’m scanning Twitter and perusing my feeds, not to mention I’ll obviously know the basic premise to be interested in the first place, but I never actively seek out information or spoilers. I leave any surprises ’till I have a controller firmly in hand, and this even includes the story, which generally means I’m rarely disappointed due to initial expectations not being met, because I haven’t had an opportunity to form any.
Tomorrow, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising hits the European market. I’ll be buying it based on… Well, I don’t actually know, because other than it being a tactical shooter known for its realism, I don’t know anything about it. This is how I approach gaming, because I believe conforming to the buzz media places around certain games can actually affect your enjoyment of them.
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Tags: Assassins Creed, Fable, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
Posted in General Gaming | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Grand Theft Auto IV needs no introduction. It also doesn’t need another review, which is why you’re not going to read one here. But with such a notable reputation, and consequently a (climatic?) build-up to finally playing it, I feel I should at least note some of my thoughts accumulated over my current 20 hours of gameplay (which only clocks in at 31% completed. Wow).
Admittedly the last GTA game I actually played was the 2D, top down ones on the original PlayStation (I can hear you all gasping). GTA IV was new territory, and having loved the simplicity of the original, I wasn’t sure how I’d take to the maturity in gameplay and environment. Sounds crazy, I know, but Sonic The Hedgehog continues to prove that some games just work better in 2D. Add to that my uncertainty of Niko Bellic (I didn’t find him instantly likable), and you have what can only be described as apprehension. Ultimately, I wasn’t really sure what to expect.
The Combat – GTA got off to a bad start. Earlier missions are all about hand to hand combat, which turns out to be GTA IV’s major weakness. Having that exposed immediately didn’t bode well for initial impressions. Firearms are easier to handle, but I found myself cursing the auto-lock system all too often. When certain missions require you to take various fleeing gang members down in a busy street, accidentally locking onto a pedestrian instead, which happens more than it should, leads to a lot of unnecessary frustration
Auto-lock. I’ll never understand it.
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Tags: Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto IV, GTA IV, Rockstar, Saints Row
Posted in General Gaming | 24 Comments »
Friday, September 18th, 2009
The second installment to the Guitar Hero series was no doubt the one that propelled the franchise into the mainstream, thus paving way for the rhythm action genre to enjoy huge commercial success. Everyone and their hamster were strapping plastic X-plorers around their neck, being seduced by the challenging tones of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird. But with the surge in popularity of glorified fisher price guitars came criticism directly aimed towards rhythm action.
Perhaps most notably, Nickelback’s frontman, Chad ‘do-you-like-my-perm’ Kroegar, blamed Guitar Hero for the lack of new talent in the US. In his interview with MTV, he urged kids to “Set down the ‘Guitar Hero…’”, and to “…learn how to play an actual guitar”. This particular news item actually appeared in my feed reader at the end of last year, but a couple of days ago I heard a similar quip from a friend through Facebook.
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Tags: Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero III, Rock Band, The Beatles Rock Band
Posted in General Gaming, Rants | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
As opposed to reviewing Uncharted, I decided to put both Nate Drake and Lara Croft head to head, only because reviewing Uncharted without referencing to Tomb Raider was seemingly an impossible task. On the one hand we have a new, albeit immediately popular game by the name of Uncharted, and on the other we have a well established franchise that’s had over a decade to hone its formula. I wish I could sit on the fence with this one, but what fun would that be? Here goes…
Puzzles
I’ve been an avid fan of the Tomb Raider series since it first surfaced in the 90′s. Having stuck with Lara throughout her many iterations – both good and bad – there’s no doubt I’ve familiarised myself with the developer’s method in regards to puzzles. Having said that, after 9 releases there’s still a scale of intimidation that accompanies every Tomb Raider puzzle, big or small. Yes, it can be seemingly insurmountable to the extent genuine frustration sets in. But the sense of satisfaction upon cracking a puzzle is what makes Tomb Raider so rewarding, and in essence a great game.
Uncharted, on the other hand, is close, but puts itself at an immediate disadvantage by dumbing things down for the player. When faced with a puzzle, you’re presented with the option of triggering a hint by pressing one of the bumpers. This isn’t an ambiguous sense of direction either, but a concise description of what you’ve got to do. It strips away any sense of achievement.
There’s no competition here. Lara 1 – Nate 0
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Tags: Tomb Raider, Uncharted - Drake's Fortune, Versus
Posted in General Gaming | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
It’s too easy to point your finger at Microsoft and criticize, but we do it anyway ‘cos it’s fun (and it’s mostly deserved). Over the course of writing this blog, I’ve aired some opinions in regards to how I feel Xbox Live could improve, of which there are many areas in need of a tweak or two. Xbox Live has come a long way since its inception, but there are still some issues I feel Microsoft should address.
Microsoft Points
Sony have most definitely outdone Microsoft in terms of their console’s currency system. Whilst Sony’s marketplace is disguised as PlayStation Network, it acts in the same way as Xbox Live Marketplace, offering gamers a chance to purchase arcade games and game add-ons. Microsoft charge everything via Marketplace through Microsoft Points, whereas Sony supports whatever your local currency may be. Okay, okay, so it’s pretty typical of Microsoft to not want to make things as simple as possible, therefore something we should come to expect.
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Tags: Games on Demand, Microsoft, Microsoft Points, Sony, Xbox Live
Posted in General Gaming, Rants, Xbox Live | 12 Comments »
Sunday, July 19th, 2009
A lot of people happen upon my site by searching for Resident Evil 5 and how tough the Veteran difficulty is. I wrote about the frustrating challenge I faced with attempting Resident Evil on Veteran, but I’ve since completed this mode in just over 5 hours, and it turns out it’s pretty easy!
Perhaps the sole aspect that makes Resident Evil 5 so tricky – on any difficulty – is the limited supply of ammo you tend to have stored in your inventory at any given time. While Majinis and co. do drop a generous amount of ammo, the enemies take a good few hits to incapacitate if you haven’t upgraded any weapons, so you can go through a significant amount of ammo in a short time. Turns out, though, that you can unlock unlimited ammo for the rocket launcher if you complete the game in under 5 hours.
A friend and I decided this would be the smartest thing to do before attempting it on Veteran, and in just over 3 hours, which was in one sitting, we had finished the story on Amateur, unlocking unlimited ammo for the rocker launcher. KABLOOM! (That’s my rocket launcher noise).
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Tags: Resident Evil 5, Tips
Posted in General Gaming | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
O RLY?
So says Cliffy B (and you can call me Rocky D for the duration of this post), design director at Epic, the studio responsible for… Wait, what’s that game? The one with chunky men equipped with meaty artillery. Uh… Gears of War! Yeah, Gears of War. Looks like Epic could possibly be making a shift in direction in regards to future shooters. What an interesting, albeit questionable, concept.
I think I speak for everyone when I say Epic can always be trusted as far as delivering action packed, brainless, run and gun shooters go. Therefore the mantra “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” springs to mind. However, are gamers becoming complacent with the linear concept of run, cover and shoot the likes of Gears supplies?
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Tags: Cliffy B, Epic, Gears of War, RPG, Shooters
Posted in General Gaming | 6 Comments »
Hmm. Uhh. Yeah. Skyrim. It’s massive. The quests are never-ending. My character has a mohawk. My class is Breton. Don’t