Sleeping Dogs and The Walking Dead

Last night the achievements page for The Walking Dead on Steam updated and I got all excited. It was 2am and I was considering whether I should stay up and play it or wait til morning. But it didn't matter - the third episode wasn't out yet. Steam, you tease. So I'm sitting here waiting for the next instalment of my favourite episodic-content-based game of the year... hold on, describing it that way doesn't do it justice. Taking the episodes as a whole, The Walking Dead is my second favourite game of the year so far (the highest honour goes to Journey). So when new content of your second favourite game of the year is coming out imminently, you get kinda excited. Not only that, there are yet more episodes to come. Also the TV series starts again in a little over a month. I love The Walking Dead. I should read the comics too.

The word 'game' to describe these episodes seems a bit thin, though. The first one was barely a game, and the second one, seemingly less so. But as an interactive story telling experience, they are unparalleled. You follow the linear path that the author has set out for you, but are given choices along the way. It's a bit like those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books you had as a kid. Just having choices there isn't enough though, it's how these choices make you think. Not a single decision you have to make in The Walking Dead is a black or white one. They're all dripping in delicious grey, and most are going to make you feel bad in some way. Particularly the choices where someone's life is at risk. Can't wait to see which morally deprived choices I get to make later today.

While I'm waiting for that, I'll write about what I have been playing recently. And other than hours and hours of League of Legends, it has been Sleeping Dogs. Up until a week before its release, I wasn't particularly interested in this open world third person action adventure game. I saw the star studded cast, and though, eh, famous names do not a good game make. But then suddenly, it was a good game, people were talking about the quality gameplay, the excellent story and the pretty visuals. So I bought it, and I can indeed confirm all of these things, and more.

We spent a bit of time on the Hooked Gamers Podcast talking about Sleeping Dogs, so everything you hear on there applies here. I have played a good few more hours since then, and the game just seems to get better as you go. Having a GTA-style game where the main combat mechanic is melee rather than simply pointing your gun and shooting is very refreshing. Especially when the combat is as good as it is. It is nearly as good as the Batman fighting, and that's saying something. You don't get to stick dudes' heads in spinning fans in Batman though. Which I guess is a good thing and a bad thing - it's kinda nasty.

Having one good game like this per year is pretty awesome. Saints Row the Third last year, Sleeping Dogs this year, and inevitably GTA 5 next year. What's cool is that each of them brings something different to the table too. Saints Row brings the hilarity and ridiculousness that used to be synonymous with GTA. I don't agree with people saying that GTA has gone downhill since it became more serious, I think it's good to have a more mature game in that vein. And now Sleeping Dogs has brought a different style of gameplay to the format, so there's some excellent quality around for open world games at the moment. Let's hope it continues. Good games are good.

Thanks for reading.

A Game Changer

Recently I finished and talked about Braid. The ending got me thinking about how we view games, and what we come to expect from them. A fresh player, having no prior knowledge of Braid would go in to the game thinking "Yes, of course I'm going to save the princess at the end, because that's what the story is setting up for me". That feeling would be reinforced at the end of the first (or rather second) world, where they are told that "The Princess is in another castle". "Ah ha, just a little homage to the Mario games, frustrating me a little, only to make the reward greater when I actually find her later - a little clichéd, but I'll allow it".

The entire perception of the game shatters right at the last instant though, due to a seemingly simple, yet world-changing plot point. You're not trying to save the Princess, in fact she needs saving from you. It's not very often that we don't get a "happily ever after" ending, which makes sense, that sort of climax is tried and tested, but it's nice when we get something a little different from the norm. That's not to say I want more unexpected endings either, the industry would eventually just become a big parody of itself to the point where a plot meeting would result in someone saying "Hey, why not this time, have the good guy win at the end for a change?" That's not what anyone wants, but it's not just endings that could benefit from a little variety.

Take Spec Ops: The Line for instance. It's a standard third person cover based shooter game with squad control mechanics. It received average reviews, but there was one thing that the critics all pointed out as a highlight - the unexpected story twists. "The white phosphorous mission" became almost instantly infamous and controversial. The scene sees the player equipped with a mortar and is shown small white dots which are the targets to be blown up. Yeah, you've seen this before right? In the AC-130 sections of the Call of Duty Games. Perhaps that's the point. In those games you blow everyone up, they might be trying to escape, but they're still terrorists and they've still got guns which they're probably going to use to slaughter innocent people. So in Spec Ops, that's what you do, you blast those white dots to hell. But what if those white dots were innocent people? That's what Spec Ops: The Line explores, and it's not until later that you find out that you've accidentally murdered defenceless men, women and children. It's not a moral choice you're given in the game, it's just something you did, and it's up to you whether you can live with that or not. CoD explored a controversial moment with the airport massacre, although it lacked subtlety. "Hey guys your character is going to go in and shoot up this airport full of civilians - isn't that extreme and controversial?!"

So those are examples of unexpected plot twists and game moments, but what about a game that utterly changes in what it's asking you to do? Fez starts out as yet another indie platforming game with a twist. You are the only person in the cute little world that can perceive a third dimension, which opens up interesting puzzles involving multiple planes. It's not especially difficult, and you can reach the end of the game without much difficulty. But the end of the game is where the real game begins. It almost becomes a cryptanalysis game, needing you to solve an entirely made up language along with dealing with other entirely new puzzle mechanics. No mention was made of this before the game's release, and it's possible to 'complete' the game without ever encountering any of the new stuff. When people did find out this unbelievable amount of hidden depth, there was a certain amount of shock.

There are games out there trying to be different and add a little something to the industry, they just need to be praised more for what they are doing. Do this enough and hopefully developers will sit up and take notice - "People actually care about games and aren't just buying them to give us bucketloads of money? I suppose we'd better give something back to them, then."

Catching Up - Braid and Amnesia: The Dark Descent

A while back that ridiculous Humble Indie Bundle came out with pretty much every good game ever. Even though I already owned several of the games, I bought it anyway, gifted away my duplicates and set to playing two games I should have played already, but never got round to - Braid and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Spoilers await below.


Braid
Last night at around 2:30am I completed Braid.

I'd like to point out that I actually aided a friend in the completion of the game around the time of release on Xbox Live Arcade back in 2008, so I was up to date on the story, but enough time had passed for me to have no advantage when attempting the puzzles.

But, as those of you who have finished the game will know, Braid isn't about the puzzles. If you are under the impression that it's a quaint little indie Mario-style game with time bending mechanics then I'm afraid you've been horribly misled. I watched Indie Game: The Movie a few weeks ago (something which I would recommend to anyone at all interested in the industry), and learned that Jonathan Blow, the maker of the game actually slipped into depression not long after Braid was released. To an outsider, this would seem utterly ridiculous. The game is the highest rated title on XBLA ever, was the second highest selling game on the service in 2008, and made Blow very rich, very quickly. To him, people were enjoying the puzzles, and that was fine, they just weren't "getting" it. The philosophical and highly mature side of the story only reveals itself fully if you complete the entire game, and that is what a lot of people were missing.

As I say, I knew prior to last night's completion what happened at the end of the game, and I remembered the final level fairly vividly. It speaks to the game's quality that I remember this almost four years after its release, and yet I can't really remember much of what happened in Max Payne 3 which I played and reviewed about two months ago.

Braid is a simple story about Tim, a guy who is trying to save his Princess from an evil monster. To do this he has to solve puzzles while manipulating time. But the thing about time in Braid is that it isn't linear, and it certainly isn't simple. Not only does that relate to the puzzles, but also to the story itself. The final level in the game takes place in World 1. The level begins and Tim sees the evil Knight holding on to the Princess whilst holding onto a vine hanging down from above.

"I got you!" He sneers.

But the Princess manages to escape his clutches and jump up to a ledge above him.

"Get down here!" He shouts after her.

"Help!" She cries out to Tim who is watching all of this from below.

Just then a wall of flame erupts from the left side of the screen, engulfing everything in its path. Tim runs to the right in the lower section of the level, with the Princess above him, and they aid each other by pulling levers and lowering ladders to help each other escape their impending doom.

Tim finally reaches a ladder, and climbs up to his Princess who is on the other side of some glass. And then, whiteness.

The princess is asleep in the room behind the glass, and Tim can't reach her. The only thing that can be done is rewind time, and then everything becomes clear. Time isn't being rewound, but allowed to run forwards.

The Princess is fleeing from Tim, setting traps and blocking off routes up to her which Tim manages to narrowly avoid each time. She then sees her Knight up ahead, and knows that she is going to be safe.

"Help!" She cries out to the Knight, while Tim watches helplessly from below.

"Get down here!" He shouts to her.

The Princess jumps down to from the ledge and into the loving grasp of her Knight.

"I got you!" He soothes her, and they escape up the vine to safety.

The epilogue contains text ambiguously explaining the story of Braid. Blow has never revealed the true meaning, and that is the point - it's very open to interpretation. One of my favourite theories is the Atomic Bomb theory, which can be found by clicking this link. It posits that Tim is a scientist working on the first Atomic Bomb, and that The Princess is the bomb herself. This would explain several references in the text hinting at locations and quotations surrounding the development of the bomb, and the wall of flame at the end of the game, and some of the artwork which suggests a Manhattan setting. My favourite thing about the story though, is that we will never know the exact meaning, and that's how it should stay in my view.

Story aside, the final moments of the game are a masterpiece in level design. The fact that Blow can make a level work both backwards and forwards, and have two entirely different meanings is a very impressive achievement. I'm very much looking forward to the next game that can combine storytelling and gameplay in such a tight way.


Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Again, I've seen the majority of Amnesia being played, so I knew what to expect here. You would have thought that would negate some of the horror impact of the game. Nope.

I haven't really got very far into the game playing on my own. Conceptually I'm a big fan of the game, but then I can never bring myself to put myself through playing it, which is a shame. I did do the water monster bit though, which is no mean feat, as people who have played the game will confirm.

One day I will finish it. Maybe.

The new Amnesia game, A Machine for Pigs got delayed until 2013 recently, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I really want to play it, but at least now I've got more time to prepare for it. You can read my preview of the game I wrote by clicking on this link.

That's it for now, thanks for reading, have a good weekend whatever you're doing. I'm going to see Batman, can't wait.

E3 2012 Part 3: Sony and Nintendo

Sony Press Conference
Well, Jack Tretton has been the best and least awkward host so far, and definitely got the best crowd reaction - most people actually laughed at his jokes.

First up was Quantic Dream, the developer behind critically acclaimed Heavy Rain. They were showing their new IP: Beyond: Two Souls. The main character, Jodie, has some kind of link to supernatural beings, ghosts or otherwise, and is being portrayed by Ellen Page, with her likeness looking rather eerie with no hair. It seems as though Jodie will be on the run from law enforcement as we see a SWAT team, helicopter and all being utterly destroyed by Jodie's supernatural powers. It doesn't seem as though she's wholly malevolent though, perhaps she's just misunderstood...

Playstation All Stars was next, Sony's take on the much loved Smash Bros style of gameplay. It will be featuring a whole range of character's from the company's past and present, although some of them are less recognisable than the ones Nintendo have in its game. The main difference between the two games seems to be that in this one, the characters can level up super attacks by fighting. It certainly seems like fun, however I can't see it being as popular as Smash Bros itself.

Next up were some Vita games, with Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified and Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation. AC3L will feature the first female assassin of the series, and will be able to link with the full AC3 PS3 game to unlock items that each character can use. CoD has similar functionality, but just looks like another CoD game to be honst.

Sony had some exclusive content about already announced games next. In Assassin's Creed 3 you'll be able to control a big old war ship, where you'll be handling navigation and cannons to fight off other ships. The water and changing weather effects look really nice too.

The Far Cry 3 exclusive announcement was that the game will feature a fully fledged four player co op campaign. There was a live demo of this, and it looks fairly interesting, although the graphics looked strangely lacking compared to the solo campaign demo we saw earlier. Perhaps this was due to the image being blown up for a big screen, but we'll see.

Then came Wonderbook, the new piece of hardware which looks like a physical book, which is recognised by the PlayStation Eye and functions as a piece of augmented reality kit. They showed Pottermore- which acts as an interactive spellbook from the Harry Potter universe. After a few failed attempts they eventually got the thing working and showed how to use the Move controller to act as a wand, and how you can interact with the Wonderbook to alter what's happening on screen. It'll certainly be popular with kids if the bugs are ironed out.

God of War Ascension is the new God of War game, basically. There doesn't seem to be much to it other than that. There are new moves and new enemy types, but that's what everyone would've already expected - a little disappointing.

Finally, Sony showed a gameplay demo of The Last of Us, which received the biggest cheer of the conference on account of its seemingly fluid and dynamic gameplay set in a post apocalyptic world inhabited by thieves and scavengers. It looks really interesting and if it can keep up the varied gameplay throughout the entire game it could become an instant hit.

Nintendo Press Conference
"The Wii U will change your life" apparently, so it seems like Nintendo are expecting big things from it. They showed a black console! It's black, not white! Also there's the much anticipated Pikmin 3, so that's cool for fans of that franchise, especially since it's been eight years since the last one.

Nintendo are introducing something called Asymmetric Gameplay, with many possibilities. Perhaps a player with a Wii U gamepad has a different gameplay experience to those using regular Wiimotes. The console will only support two gamepads though, which seems a shame.

The new home screen for the new console will be called the Miiverse - a screen populated by your friends, and further populated to represent what's trending on Wii U by the miniature Miis gathering around particular titles. You'll be able to send simple text messages which appear on your friend's consoles or create notes using the stylus.

It wouldn't be a new Nintendo console without a Mario game, and they haven't disappointed. New Super Mario Brothers U, the first in the line of many games with an unnecessary U added to the title was announced. The asymmetric gameplay was shown here, where a player with a gamepad can place blocks around the screen to help those with Wiimotes. Other than that though, it looks pretty similar to most other Mario games, funny that.

Third party software came next, and Batman Arkham City: Armored Edition, will be using the gamepad to scan things, and the touch screen will be used to interact with environment. The motion controls will be useful for controlling batarangs, and much more. It's a shame that interesting technology like this is being used on a year old game however.

Scribblenauts Unlimited made an appearance, and will be building upon the popular franchise by opening up the creation tools to create endless exciting objects. You'll be able to create any object, and then share your creations with your friends.

Everyone loves a fitness game these days, so they then showed a bit of Wii Fit U with multiple cleavage shots of an attractive woman and many angles showing off the muscles of an attractive man. Yay, fitness! Another type of game everyone needs these days is a karaoke game, so here was the unimaginatively named Sing to be a part of that.

Then there was what looked like a tech demo of something called Nintendo Land which is an almagamtion of their famous franchises in a theme park setting, with more antisymmetric gameplay being demoed.

Then that was kind of it, there was no big reveal like many of the other press conferences had, so that was a little underwhelming.

So that's it for the press conferences of E3 2012! Check back later in the week when I'll be writing about anything that catches my eye from the show floor, but until then, thanks for reading and have a good one.

E3 2012 Part 2 - EA and Ubisoft

Sorry EA, even though you were chronologically first, you've been relegated to second place in this post because Ubisoft absolutely blew your press conference out of the water. And all that in spite of the awful Ubisoft hosts for the second year in the row. Tobuscus should stick to making Literal Trailers on YouTube and Aisha Tyler should stick to... playing Charlie on Friends for like five episodes... has she done anything else? Terrible attempts at banter aside, Ubisoft had some really impressive looking games on show - here are my thoughts:

Ubisoft Press Conference
Microsoft had an Usher performance for Dance Central 3, so Ubisoft also had to splash the cash and get Flo Rida to come out live and rap and attempt to dance for Just Dance 4. The actual dancers were all fairly attractive women wearing tight shirts and short shorts (probably to make up for the fact that Just Dance is generally thought of as the inferior dance game).

And then, more boobs. This press conference was very uncensored, strange considering how early in the day it was, but hey ho. The Far Cry 3 trailer opened with a topless woman writhing on top of you, and then there were guns, bows and arrows, knives, tigers and fire. Damn Cry Engine is good at fire. Then there was a sequence where the character was injected with something, then started tripping out and was walking through a dream world on television screens and then he shot the bad guy, but his face changed just before he did it. I'm not entirely sure what was going on, but it looked interesting and I'm enough of a fan of the previous games to be pretty excited about this one.

Probably the most underwhelming trailer of the conference was for Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth. It showed some fights between some recognisable Marvel characters, but not much else, and it was barely talked about.

Rayman Legends was next, and suddenly became my most looked forward to game of the show so far (although that didn't last long, you'll find out why later). It was demoed on the Wii U, with a new character shown to be controlled using the touch screen controller, while two other characters used normal Wiimotes to platform. The touch screen was used to move around the screen and manipulate environments to help the platformers. Then there was a sequence when things on screen were happening in time with the music, and it was very impressive. Definitely something to look forward to on the new Nintendo console.

It's the Queen's diamond jubilee this weekend, so there was a trailer with the British national anthem playing over it! God save the queen! Oh God, zombies are killing everyone in London. Zombi U is the new winner of worst game name of the show so far (the previous holder of the title was Lococycle, although strangely that also held title of best named game), and apparently it's a zombie game, because that's a revolutionary concept.

Assassin's Creed 3 had a large segment of the show, and deservedly so, as it looks very (I'm going to use this word again) impressive. Being able to free run over trees instead of building is fresh and looks very cool. New mechanics such as firing squads and not being able to run as fast in deep snow and so on all look like they are going to make this game one to watch this year, despite my trepidation of it only being a year since the previous game. Also the shape of Connor's tomahawk is still awesome. His unexciting name is still not.

Trackmania 2 was one of my favourite games of last year, I love the speed, I love the craziness and I love how janky it is. So when Shootmania Storm was announced a few weeks ago, no one was more excited than me. Ubisoft had a live demo, with 'famous' names from the world of eSports taking part in a girls vs boys match of Elite Mode, where each round is 1 v 3, with the one person having the advantage of using a one shot kill gun. And the boys won, woo.

Finally, Ubisoft had a new IP to tell us about, and God damn it looks cool. It seems to be a third person action game, where the protagonist has access to a wealth of technology, as well as guns. The tagline is that "the city becomes your weapon", and that certainly seems to ring true, as we see the main character hacking in to traffic lights to cause a car crash involving his target, being able to gain someone's personal information just be looking at them, hacking into phones or turning off all signals in an area to cause a distraction and more. Then there was a twist at the end of the gameplay demonstration as the camera switched to another character, who certainly had what looked like a multiplayer gametag above his head. On top of all this the city the player roams around looks gorgeous, with great lighting and weather effects, and there are some top notch long coat dynamics. Watch Dogs got the largest cheer I've heard so far at the show, and rightly so, we love new games that looks awesome! The one thing I will say is that I'm unsure whether Ubisoft are targeting current generation platforms with this game, but if they are, sweeeeet.

EA Press Conference
I didn't realise the finale of Game of Thrones was going to be longer than usual, which is annoying as it made me miss the Dead Space 3 reveal. Apparently they were touting a co op campaign and a new playable character. I loved Dead Space 2, and I hope this one will live up to that.

Do you know what else I loved growing up? Sim City. And EA are making a new one, super excited. Did anyone say "roads that aren't straight"? The one downer of this presentation was that it's not coming out til next February, booo.

EA then rolled out their sports games, Madden and Fifa, which I talked about in my first post, so go and click that link on the right if you haven't already.

Battlefield 3: Premium was announced. Right now you can pay the low low price of $50 and get access to 5 unreleased expansion packs! I'm not a fan of this whole "pay now and you can get stuff later!" payment model of late, but who knows, maybe the new stuff will be super amazing.

EA's other big war game came out next. Medal of Honor Warfighter showed itself, and damn it looks pretty, that Frostbite 2 engine is niiiice. Other than that though, it looks like...a war game. We've already got BF and CoD, and the new MoH doesn't look revolutionary, which is a shame.

Then EA announced a few year and multi game partnership with UFC, which I don't really have an interest in, even though they hammered home the point that apparently it's the fastest growing sport in the world. Good for them.

Criterion make some damn good driving games, and Need for Speed Most Wanted looks like it will keep up with the trend- wait a minute wasn't that the name of a previous NFS game? On the current generation of hardware? Weird.

They closed out the press conference with Crysis 3, what else? It looks nicer, but the gameplay looks veeery similar to Crysis 2, which is a fine game, but I'd like something a bit fresher like what Ubisoft are doing with Assassin's Creed. Also, I'm guessing that Cry Engine has some new bow and arrow technology, as both this and Far Cry are using them...

So that was EA and Ubisoft. I'll be back later with Sony and Nintendo! Thanks for reading, have a good day.

E3 2012 Part 1 - Microsoft

The biggest press event in the gaming calendar is here! E3 2012 started today and I'll be attempting to watch all of the press conferences and write about what has been sparking my interest.

Microsoft Press Conference
The entire theatre started awash with Microsoft's familiar green light, and then there it was - a FMV Halo 4 trailer! Now I've never been the biggest fan of Halo, and my hopes of something new were dashed when I saw that the first enemies to be seen were Grunts, Jackals and Elites. But wait, that Elite just disintegrated... wait, what are those glowing crawling animal robot things? Awesome, something new from the Halo franchise, perhaps I'll be excited about it after all.

Next up was Splinter Cell Blacklist. I remember when these were highly unforgiving stealth games, but not any more. This origin story sees Sam Fisher running and gunning his way through hordes of enemies, and scaling walls like a monkey. I haven't confirmed this, but I don't think Michael Ironside was voicing young Fisher, which made me a bit sad, but we'll see.

I know lots of "proper" gamers don't like sports games, but that's only because they're wrong. Fifa 13 will be the new slightly improved football game for this year, and will feature Kinect support for the first time. You can make substitutions without going into menus, can call for passes and so on. My favourite part was when they showed a player being caught by the offside trap and swearing at the Kinect (it was beeped out, kid friendly show). The Kinect picked up on this however and the commentator began saying how the player was unhappy about being caught out, very amusing.

Madden 13 too will feature Kinect support, and the presentation even featured legendary quarterback Joe Montana! I found it funny that no one seemed to be acknowledging that Sega made the largely unsuccessful Joe Montana football games back in the nineties, but anyway. Montana began to call plays using his voice rather than a controller and then proceeded to score a touchdown! Against the Seahawks, with the Niners, what a dick.

Fable The Journey is a Kinect Fable game. Yay.

Gears of War Judgment got a trailer too, sparking many debates about what the correct spelling of that word is. The trailer didn't show much other than confirming that it is indeed a new Gears of War game, so there's that.

Then there was dubstep, which can only mean one thing: a racing game! Forza Horizon was on show, and this time they're leaving the track and heading out into the open world, and it looks very, very pretty. I've never been drawn to the Forza franchise despite being a big racing fan, hopefully this will do something to persuade me.

Last year we saw the new Tomb Raider game, and this year we got to see a bit more! The gameplay looks incredibly fast paced, seeing Lara running, jumping, shooting and stabbing her way through the level at breakneck speed. I'm hoping that there will be more of an exploration element to the finished game, but I guess they have to show off the exciting sections here.

Then three new titles. Ascend New Gods seems like a fantasy beat em up, in the same vein as God of War, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it from what they showed. Then they showed a trailer for a game called Lococycle, and in the notes I made for the press conference it says "Wat???????", so there you go. Go and watch the trailer. Then finally 343 Guilty Spark was floating around a test chamber from Portal and apparently that's going to be called Matter. 


But that doesn't Matter because Resident Evil 6 was next, and much like Tomb Raider the action was fast and action packed, with explosions and fire and helicopters and quick time events out the arse. I wasn't particularly interested, but then I haven't been interested in a RE game for a long time now.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park then made an appearance to grant some much needed levity to the press conference. They were showing off South Park: The Stick of Truth, well not so much showing it off as showing a trailer which gave no indication of what the game will be. You will be playing as the new kid in town who is trying to become cool and be the fifth member of the group. It remains to be seen just how this will be done and whether it will be any good or not.

Then for some reason Usher came out and sang a song and danced. A lot. And then he left and apparently that was them showing off Dance Central 3, huh.

Finally, Microsoft closed out their star studded show with the big guns, quite literally. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 or CODBLOPS2 if you're feeling that way inclined showed the public what they've been showing press since the game got announced a while back. There's a female president and holographic devices, so you know it's the future. Also there's a gun which you can "charge up" which apparently means it can shoot through solid concrete to kill guys on the other side. The gameplay demonstration takes place in Los Angeles and shows the branching storylines and differing tactics you can use to approach your mission. At one point you can choose to either snipe from the top of the broken freeway or rappel down and shoot guys that way. Okay fine, it's not really revolutionary, but at least it's a step in the right direction for the ageing franchise. The most interesting part for me was the use of drones which could be controlled using a PDA thing on your wrist, and that there was a pilot-able jet. I'm unsure whether the jet is on semi- rails, as there didn't seem to be a way to alter your altitude when you wanted to, but I could be wrong about that. Also, the future is black, apparently.

So that was Microsoft's press conference. I'll be writing up EA and Ubisoft's respective press conferences early on tomorrow, and then I'll hopefully be able to do Sony and Nintendo's later in the day.

Excited about games yet? I sure am, and we're only a couple of hours in to this epic event. Thanks for reading, see you later.

Diablo 3, Max Payne 3 & The Walking Dead

It has been over a month since my last blog post, and I'm glad to be back writing again.

The reason for my hiatus was my university finals, and now that they're over I am no longer in full time education! How did I celebrate? By downloading the games I had been missing out on over the past few months of course.

Diablo III
This was the one. Of all the titles I wanted to play during my revision, this was the one that was tempting me the most, not least because half of my friends list on Steam were playing it 24/7, and that's only the ones that had bothered to add it to their non-steam game list. So, this morning, the morning after what I hope was my last ever exam, I downloaded it (very quickly, Blizzard have definitely upgraded their downloader since I last played one of their games) and logged in, after a minute or so trying to find the authenticator app on my phone.

Oh, this thing, I remember reading about this issue that was occurring over the first few days after the game's release. Maybe it was just giving me the full experience?

Nope, not working. Okay, I'll play that later.

The Walking Dead
Since Diablo was walking, I thought I'd jump into one of the other games I had been itching to play. I've never read the comics or seen the television adaptation of this series, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. After reading multiple favourable reviews I thought I would give it a go though, and I definitely wasn't disappointed. It also makes me want to at least watch the TV show, if the writing is up to the same quality as it is in the game - which will be another huge time sink, but hey, I'm technically unemployed now, time is one of the things I do have.

It's a game about zombies, which I continue to say I don't enjoy the idea of, yet still seem to keep playing them (Dead Island, Dead Space, Dead Rising, etc). Telltale Games, the masters of episodic adventure titles strike again (they kinda struck out with that Jurassic Park one, but we'll forgive them for now), with more item collection and quick time events! It's a lot better than it sounds though, as the entire thing is wrapped up in a great little story which really makes you empathise with the characters over the short play time with clever dialogue sequences and tricky decisions to make along the way.

There's only one episode out at the moment, but there are four more to come and I am very much looking forward to playing them, after the huge CLIFFHANGER at the end of the first. Spoiler: The woman says "I think everything is going to be okay" - and then all the lights go out. One of the weakest plot moments of the entire episode I must admit.

Max Payne 3
I was considering getting this for console, but now I'm going to be reviewing the PC version for Hooked Gamers, so I'm waiting a few extra days for it to be released on Steam. Check back for that!

For now though, I'm going to revel in my new found mountains of student debt - thanks for reading, have a good one.