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.

Demos and New Releases

I feel like I haven't done this in a while. My last post was a review of The Darkness II, which can be found here, or if for some reason you don't want to read the entire thing, there is an edited version on the Warwick University newspaper site because it was too long for them.

In other news, I wrote an Arma 3 Preview for Hooked Gamers, and I've just finished up an article about the Double Fine Kickstarter and the Humble Bundle Mojam which should be surfacing in one form or another pretty soon.

The even more exciting news is that we're finally getting to a run of decent new releases... here's what has been whetting my proverbial appetite recently.

SSX Demo


I normally don't play game demos (the auto dictionary thing is underlining 'demos', but I'm pretty sure that's the correct pluralisation... anyway), because it is generally what the developer wants you to see, i.e. the most polished part of the game which will allow them to take money out of your pockets more easily. However with sports games (extreme or otherwise) I can't imagine they are able to do that so well. There's a tutorial and a single level in the SSX demo, so I guess they could just make that really good, but regardless, I played a bit of it.

It's pretty fun! I played one of the old games like ten years ago and haven't really touched the series since, but EA definitely seem to have rejuvenated SSX back into something worth playing. Oh yeah, it's a snowboarding game, maybe I should've mentioned that earlier.


Everything looks real nice, some great lighting effects and the animations are really smooth. As I say, there's only one level, or "drop" as EA are calling them so there's not a great deal to comment on, but it's definitely enjoyable. You do tricks, grind rails and everything else you'd expect from a snowboarding/ skateboarding game. Performing these tricks build up your meter, which allows you to give yourself a speed boost, and eventually you enter "Tricky" mode, where you get infinite boost and can perform better tricks. Do well enough in Tricky mode and you will enter "Super Tricky" mode, where you can hit the shoulder buttons at the same time to pull of your rider's special signature move.

I'm gonna wait til some reviews come out to decide whether or not I'm going to buy it, but it is certainly interesting me. I believe it's out in the US tomorrow and we have to wait til the 2nd over here in the EU, so we'll see.


FIFA Street Demo


Another reason I don't usually play demos is because it's probably going to be a level from the game, meaning I'm then going to have to play that bit again if I eventually buy it. I like games 'n'all but I don't really want to spend a bunch of time doing something again and again.

 Contrary to that statement, I have been playing FIFA 12 again and again and again recently, so never mind, play demos if you want to.

The lack of new releases keeps me going back to the super addictive online Ultimate Team mode, so I'm excited to see what EA is going to do with a new football release. FIFA Street is all about your ball skills (teehee) as you get points for doing tricks, and it's not about how many goals you score but how you score them.

The demo is out on Wednesday for PS3 so I'll give that ago and probably get back to you about that.

Mass Effect 3


Haven't played the demo for ME3, are you surprised?

This is the big one then, the first huge release of the year, and hopefully it will live up to the hype, and the precedent set by the much loved previous games in the series. It's out on the 9th in the EU, so less than two weeks away!

What was with all this hate for EA/Bioware even before the game demo came out, you hadn't even played it by then! I remember back in the good old days of, oh I don't know, a year ago, when Bioware was untouchable... the shining God amongst video game developers, and now everyone's complaining because it put multiplayer into an RPG game and tried to add in some Kinect functionality? Just don't play it that way if it incenses you so much!

I'm not even the biggest fan of the series, although I quite enjoyed the second game and I'll be buying this one when it comes out, it's just a little confusing.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning


After some screw ups with Paypal, I finally got my hands on this game around two weeks after release, and have been playing bits and pieces of it since then.

It's kinda good, I was hoping it was going to be super revolutionary but it isn't really. The combat is quite fun, and different to a normal RPG, so it's nice to have that variety, but it's not engaging enough. And there are far too many quests... the majority are fairly well written, but I have found myself playing it more and more like how I used to level through WoW on alt characters. Go to a quest hub, pick up every quest I see, skip through the text, follow the markers on my map, kill/loot/escort whatever is there and repeat until everything is finished.

It's a shame because they did have some really nice ideas, and it's fairly fun to play for the most part, it just needed to be a bit more compelling.

That's it for now, Journey is coming out in a couple of weeks and I honestly can't wait for that, but I'll get more into that closer to the time.

Thanks for reading y'all, have a good one.

The Darkness II - Review

I actually wrote this about 5 days ago, and have been trying to get it published somewhere since then. It's going to be in The Boar (Warwick University Newspaper) next week, but some of it had to be cut as it was too long, so here's a sneaky peek at the unedited version:

The Darkness II - Review

Digital Extremes has taken over the reins of development for The Darkness II, the follow up to Starbreeze Studios' acclaimed 2007 original. After a delay of over six months, it was finally released at the beginning of February on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

The games follow the story of Jackie Estacado, who is inhabited by a malevolent being called The Darkness. This gives him unholy abilities, on top of two tentacle-like extra limbs, which can be used to melee and grab objects and enemies from afar. After surviving multiple mob hits in the first game, and being forced to watch his girlfriend, Jenny, die, Jackie went on a quest for revenge. The Darkness II takes place two years after the events of the first game, and in the meantime, Jackie himself has become the head of the Franchetti crime family, whilst trying to keep the evil Darkness under control. However, at the beginning of the game, Jackie is under attack once more, and must unleash the power of The Darkness again as only it has the power to prevent him from dying.

As the story unravels, you find that an ancient organisation called The Brotherhood are looking to gain the power of The Darkness. Giving up The Darkness seems an enticing prospect for Jackie, but the evil being reveals that Jenny's soul is trapped within it, and will be lost forever if Jackie does not fight back. And fight back you do, with great force. You have several categories of weapon to choose from, such as shotguns, rifles and pistols, with several types of gun within each, and you can dual wield one handed weapons. This is all standard fare, but what sets The Darkness II apart from other first person shooters are your Darkness abilities.

The right tentacle is used for swiping and slashing, and the left tentacle is used for grabbing. An enemy can't be grabbed unless they are dazed, either by being shot, or hit with the right tentacle. Once the left tentacle has someone in its grasp, a gruesome finishing move can be applied, and depending on your talent choices, you can gain health, ammo, or a shield which gives good protection from bullets. The left tentacle can also grasp objects such as lengths of pipe or fan blades, and can hurl them at enemies, causing yet more gory death. On top of the tentacles, you can also unlock some extra abilities, such as being able to channel The Darkness through your guns, which means you can fire without using any ammo and with increased damage. Early on, you get the ability to eat the hearts of deceased enemies to give you a health boost. Guts and gore are definitely high on the list of defining features of The Darkness II. Be wary though, as your Darkness powers can't be used in the light, so you are often shooting out bulbs, or avoiding enemies smart enough to carry large torches with them.

Also at your disposal is your little Darkling buddy, who is a figment of your imagination, but becomes a very real threat in the dark. He also provides a little comic relief, as he is a small, British-accented demon wearing a union jack shirt who delights in calling you 'Monkey' even though he looks like one himself. You control him at certain points during the game, but for the most part you're running around as Jackie killing everything that moves.

Right from the get go, the game has a rather frenetic pace, especially from an onlooker's point of view. The amount of action on screen at any one time can be a little overwhelming because of your four points of attack. Despite this, the controls are usually manageable, with one shoulder button being assigned to each limb on the consoles. The main complaint is that your tentacles rather obstruct your field of view, sometimes making it difficult to see exactly where the danger is coming from. Being in the light is also a massive hindrance, as it takes away your Darkness powers, while also partially blinding you. Once again, if you don't know exactly where the light source is, it's quite hard to escape and you are very vulnerable. When it's at its best though, The Darkness II is a delight to play, a fast paced shooter with great and exciting extra mechanics.

It's a nice thing to look at too, with some good cel-shaded visuals to give it more of a comic book feel, since the games stem from the comic book series. Although cartoony, the game does a good job of maintaining the dark, brooding atmosphere throughout, to the point that when you do go outside in the daytime for a fleeting moment later in the game, the amount of light and colour seems strange. Also adding to the atmosphere is the top notch voice acting on show, with Mike Patton of Faith No More fame returning from the first game to voice the Darkness, and Brian Bloom becoming the new voice talent for Jackie. Even the side characters are voiced really well, and the quality of writing helps you feel really involved in what's going on on screen. To break up the action, Jackie occasionally has hallucinations created by The Darkness to distract him from his goal of being reunited with Jenny. Many of these take place in an insane asylum, where Jackie is the patient, Jenny is a nurse, and members of The Brotherhood and his crime family are either doctors or fellow inmates. In fact, the game does a good job of nearly convincing you that maybe Jackie is a mental patient and is just imagining his other life after all. The Darkness II has a pretty compelling story, which will keep you powering through just to see what happens next.

The only problem is that the main story mode is on the short side. On normal difficulty it only took me between four and five hours. There is a new game plus mode, where you can replay the story again whilst keeping all of your talents you have accumulated, and there are plenty of achievements to go for, but the lack of length in the first place is a little disappointing.

The Darkness II does have a multiplayer mode to keep things going though, and it takes the form of a co-operative story campaign called Vendettas. You can play as one of four characters, each with their own limited selection of Darkness powers, and you play through some missions that are alluded to in the single player mode. It too is fairly short though, so if you want to bring some friends on a long multiplayer campaign, you may have to look elsewhere.

If you're looking for a quick burst of fun with some extreme violence and brutal murder thrown in, then The Darkness II is the game for you. A bit more work on the campaign and a more robust multiplayer mode and it could have become one of the better games in a slow start to the year for new releases. But as it is, it's an enjoyable, if short, experience that I would recommend to fans of shooters who are looking for something a little bit different.

Overall:

8.3/10

That bit where... Dead Space 2

Haven't blogged in a while, partly because it's still January and as such there are no new games to talk about, but mostly because I haven't had time. I've still been writing though, and if you haven't seen them already you should go and check out my articles on Hooked Gamers, who I now work as a volunteer writer for!

Borderlands 2 Preview: http://www.hookedgamers.com/pc/borderlands_2/preview/article-988.html

How biased are gamers? (Feature): http://www.hookedgamers.com/features/2012/01/24/how_biased_are_gamers.html

Back to blogging business then, with the latest part in my 'That bit where' series.

I'm not usually much of a horror game player, but Dead Space 2 tickled my fancy last year so I decided to give it a try. After a play through with many spills and multiple thrills, it became one of my favourite games of last year. There are several stand out moments (most of them horrifically gory), but the one I'm going to write about here is one of the most exhilarating sequences in the game.

Dead Space 2 - The Train


For the most part, Dead Space 2 is a game which gleefully allows nothing to happen for five minutes while you wander around checking every corner, and then when you least expect it: BAM, a monster jumps out of a wall and impales you on razor sharp spikes. You do well to hold onto your controller when this happens, and if you do you are hammering on the fire button until whatever the thing is falls over, and sometimes even then it isn't dead. The game is very good at this, and so does it at nearly every opportunity, and it never gets any less terrifying. In a game where ammo can sometimes be fairly hard to come by, wasting multiple bullets in these situations isn't advisable.

I'm emphasising the amount of times you're slowly tip-toeing around, waiting for the next monster to appear, because the train sequence in Dead Space 2 is pretty much the exact opposite. It breaks any of the tension that has been created up to that point in the game in about a three minute long action packed roller-coaster(train) ride.

So you start up the train, which clearly the undead inhabitants of Dead Space 2 don't like, as they start swarming to your location. Even as the train hurtles along, they're jumping onto it and breaking through the windows left and right. After defending yourself for a bit, suddenly the carriage you are in breaks off from the rest of the train, so you have to make a death defying leap towards the next carriage, using your handy foot-mounted rocket boosters. After dodging the doors which are wrenched off and sent flying towards you, you roll into the next carriage, with yet more monsters waiting for you.

But it's not over there. Not long after this, the train starts to go into a nose-dive (by the way it's like a floating space train, should've mentioned that earlier). Unable to stand up properly, you slide on your back through the rest of the carriages, shooting and dodging flailing zombies as you go. The train crashes into what seems to be a large storage hangar, and you are caught in a wire, hanging upside down from the wrecked train just above the ground. And there are more monsters coming.

This moment probably stayed with me as it was so different from most of the rest of the game. The game is filled with edge-of-your-seat moments, and this one is exciting in a completely different way from the traditional horror moments of other levels. I would definitely recommend playing this game, you can probably pick it up fairly cheap these days too.

Thanks for reading.

That bit where... Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Back in 2007, we were bored of first person shooters. It seemed like every month, a new game came out that was set in bloody World War II. By that time it had been done to death, we all knew the scenarios, the weapons and the outcome of every battle (the Nazis lose, spoilers).

But then, rising out of the swamp of FPS mediocrity came Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Wait a second, this is set, like, today? That's so real! It gave us a new enemy, instead of fighting Nazis, we were now fighting anyone who wasn't American or British, and in doing so the developers were staying as close to current affairs as possible...

Along with that, there were new weapons to enjoy, the guns that every nine year old can talk about at length today were largely unknown before this game came out. They also highlighted how much guns from the 40s sucked...you mean I don't have to load a new bullet into the chamber after firing every shot? War is awesome!

Five years later, we're praying for something different from FPS developers, but oh well, it was good for a while.

Anyway, there were two highlights of the game for me, one of them being the Ghillie mission, simply because it was something different. Instead of shooting everything that moved, you had to stealth your way through, picking your shots and trying not to get detected. Then there was that bit after you assassinated the guy with the helicopter which oh so nearly crashes into you! But then it stops, phew! My favourite part of the game though, was a moment of extreme poignancy that seemed so out of place and yet fitted in so perfectly.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Shock and Awe


"All U.S. forces, be advised, we have a confirmed nuclear threat in the city. NEST teams are on site and attempting to disarm. I repeat we're..."

In the mission entitled 'Shock and Awe', you are tasked with attacking Al-Asad's (the villain of the piece) rumoured position in his capital city. However, half way through the mission a retreat is called after a nuclear threat in the city is detected. During the retreat, you stop off to rescue a downed helicopter pilot who is under fire.

Everyone bundles into an evac helicopter and as you take off you see several other helicopters making their escape from the city, phew, everyone's going to make it.

And then the nuclear device detonates.

You watch as the mushroom cloud billows skywards and the shockwave makes it way towards you, destroying everything in it's path. We're far enough away, right? We're still going to make it. But the shockwave keeps coming, enveloping the other helicopters in a cloud of dust and rubble, and then it hits you. Your helicopter spirals out of control, crashes into the ground and then everything fades to black.

Did I fail the mission? That's not supposed to happen is it?

You wake up, manage to crawl your way out of the wreckage and drag yourself onto your feet. The sun has disappeared behind the smoke, and everything around you is just a shell of what it once was. At least you're alive though, someone will come soon to save you. You fall back to the ground and close your eyes.

Someone will be there soon.

It is later revealed that 30,000 people died in the blast, Marines, OpFor and civilians all wiped out. I had never played a game where such a catastrophic event occurred right before my eyes. Nor can I remember playing a game in which I had completed a mission, and several of the game's main characters died, all in one moment.

I congratulate you, CoD4:MW, not only for having an acronym longer than most game titles, but for putting this incredible sequence into a game, allowing a slight insight, just for a moment, into what it would actually be like to be in that situation. Maybe war isn't so awesome after all.

Thanks for reading.

That bit where... Warcraft 3 (plus announcement)

If you haven't heard, yesterday I got a job as a volunteer writer for http://www.hookedgamers.com/! It's pretty exciting for me, as I'll be getting a taste of what it's like to be a professional writer - sticking to deadlines and whatnot- while still maintaining a bit of freedom over what I write about.

If all goes to plan, my first article on the site will be a preview of Borderlands 2, which I am currently taking a break from researching while I write this, so that's something to look forward to.

I shan't be falling behind on my blogging duties though, so today I'll continue my 'That Bit Where...' series by talking about one of my favourite games from when I was twelve and into my early teens, Warcraft 3.

Warcraft 3 - The Cutscenes


My favourite cutscenes in video games have always come from Blizzard, simply because of how long and how much time it seems has been put into each one. (I'm talking about the pre-rendered cinematic cutscenes here, not the in-engine ones)

It may sound strange that my favourite parts of the game were parts that weren't actually playable, and I don't mean to detract from the quality of the game itself, because it still remains one of my favourite RTS games to actually play. After seeing the first cutscene or two however, I found myself playing through the game just to get to that next epic piece of eye candy, forever hoping that the next one wasn't the last one.

It's quite hard to talk about them as they are just videos, so I'll let you watch them yourselves, if you haven't seen them before, I'm sure you won't be disappointed. I'll link the two that I remember the most fondly here, but if you want to see them all (around 10 or so) you can find them on YouTube.

This first one depicts Archimonde, (a Champion of the Burning Legion, you don't need me to tell you with that name that they're pretty bad dudes) destroying the city of Dalaran pretty much with his mind, so you know, he's pretty badass.

The second, and probably the most iconic of all the cutscenes from the game, shows Prince Arthas betraying his father by killing him and taking the throne for himself. This is a huge moment in the series, as Arthas begins his descent from loyal Paladin, filled with honour, to twisted and evil Death Knight. Arthas' story is followed throughout the series, culminating with him being the main boss of Wrath of the Lich King, one of World of Warcraft's expansions.

(Little known fact: The petals that fall around Arthas at the beginning of the video are in fact called Arthas' Tears, and can be picked using herbalism in WoW)

I absolutely adore the story and lore behind the Warcraft series, and to have that reinforced by such beautifully created videos is the icing on the cake.

Hope you've enjoyed the videos... I have, I'm going to watch the rest of them now.

Thanks for reading.

That Bit Where... Saints Row: The Third

Back to my favourite moments in video games series, and today I'm looking at Saints Row: The Third, my second favourite game of last year. I've written about it in my review, but without going into too many specifics, so here I'm going to talk to you about one of my favourite missions in the game.


Saints Row: The Third - http://deckers.die


In a game filled with ridiculous situations, this is probably the most ridiculous of all.

The Deckers are one of the many opposing gangs to your Third Street Saints, and the gang is mainly composed of computer genii led by Matt Miller. They cause many problems for the Saints, not limited to your character failing to withdraw $1,000,000 from an ATM and consequently punching it. Anyway, eventually the camel's back is broken and it's time for you to enter Cyberspace and face off against Miller, seriously.

You're transported to this Tron-esque environment, all neon and straight lines, with Kinzie, your own computer specialist, watching over you. Except that she got your character model wrong and you're a toilet... and then a sex doll... Eventually you settle for a wire-frame character, simply because "at least it has a gun".

Decker grunts start warping in, and you swiftly dispatch of them while making your way to "the firewall". Staying true to the rest of the game, there is some hilarious dialogue, with random technological buzzwords being thrown around as if anyone knows what they're really talking about.

Eventually Miller notices the ease with which you're defeating your enemies and starts altering the world. He slows you down, reverses your controls, and -my personal favourite- starts to create artificial lag. This is the first time lag has ever been fun in a game, and you marvel at how close it feels to the real thing. You have to imagine it was actually pretty hard to do, the meeting must've gone something like "Okay, we need the frame rate to go to hell, and for enemies to jump around the screen". I mean it's nothing less ridiculous than what the developers had been asked to do prior to this point, so I doubt there was any argument.

So then you complete the text adventure and move on...

Yup, they threw in a text adventure style mini game for you to complete. Why? Because they did, just accept it. It's hard to explain if you haven't played the game, but by this point you just take whatever it starts throwing at you. It contains swords, magic and unicorns, and comes with amusing lines from your character for each of the many ways you can "die".

After you complete that, you're back in cyberspace (as a toilet with a gun for a while), kill a few more Deckers and close in on the firewall. But not before playing a bit of 1974 Atari classic Tank!. Honestly, just go with it.

Back in Cyberspace, killing a few more guys, and then the game crashes. Not your game. Cyberspace. You have to "press any key to continue". I love this game.

Finally you reach Miller and the firewall. It turns out his avatar is a 20 foot tall winged warrior with a Final Fantasy style comically oversized sword. You exchange blows, fight off a few more Deckers, and eventually Kinzie manages to turn you into a replica of Miller's Avatar. A few attacks later and you defeat him, and are the new lord of cyberspace!

I think I'll have to write a bit more about Saints Row: The Third in the future, as there are several other awesome moments I haven't even touched on.

Thanks for reading.

That bit where... Portal 2

CES starts tomorrow, which should be interesting. I may write about some of it if I find anything cool that's worth talking about. That would be going against the idea that whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas though, it must be a nightmare for press every year...

Back to games though, and as nothing is happening still in the industry, I'll continue my 'That bit where...' series where I talk you through some of my favourite moments in games.



SPOILER ALERT

Alright, seriously now, if you intend to play this game, don't read this as it is literally the ending to the game.

And what a splendid game it is, one of the funniest games of the year, and it has the gameplay to back it up. As I've said before, it's a shame that it is the follow up to a near perfect game, and as such loses some of the magic that the original Portal had. Regardless, as it made it on to my Top Ten of 2011 list, it's still a fantastic game that I'd urge anyone to play.

Remember, if you don't want to know the scores, look away now.

Portal 2 - The Moon


This was my favourite ending to a game of last year. It was really disappointing that I had seen the ending already before I got to do it myself. I was watching a friend play, and decided to keep watching even though it was clearly coming to the end. Oh well, it was still cool, and it's still fun to watch other people play the end and look awkwardly around the screen as they try and figure out what they're supposed to do.


As a little back story, one of the new mechanics in the game is that there is this white gel, which you learn is made from moon dust, which makes any surface it touches Portalable (this is now a word). This brought a whole new dimension to a game in which you used to only be able to place portals on specific surfaces. Anyway, back to the ending.

Much like the first Portal, the last section of the game is you against the main robotic antagonist, this time your friendly-robot-turned-evil, Wheatley. You do this by attaching corrupt personality cores to his body in order to initiate a core transfer, putting GLaDOS back in control of the facility (probably not the best idea either). As you think you've done it, it turns out clumsy Wheatley wasn't so clueless after all, as he has booby trapped the process. The facility begins to self destruct and the ceiling falls in around you, revealing a clear night sky, the first time you have seen outside during the game. You are catapulted across the room and roll over onto your back.

Then, you're given back control. You can't move and the sprinkler system has washed away all of the white gel apart from the patch underneath Wheatley where there is one of your portals. There's nothing to do except wait for the facility to explode. Perhaps this is one of those video game moments where you just have to accept your fate (like the nuclear explosion in the first Modern Warfare).

Wait a second... moon dust...

Surely not...

You fire a speculative portal towards the moon, and then a cutscene fires. Suddenly, everything gets sucked out through the portal under Wheatley and out into space, including you! Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all... but then GLaDOS, your mortal enemy throughout the first game and half of this one, reaches through the portal and saves you, closing the portal behind you... and then you black out.

The game ends with you waking up, and GLaDOS letting you leave the facility. She says she's tired of trying to kill you, and that she'd rather never see you again. However, as you take the lift up to the surface, she seems strangely sad to see you go. As you'd imagine, a fantastic song plays over the credits, equal parts touching and hilarious, and lastly, some final thoughts from Wheatley, floating aimlessly through space, with only some of the corrupt personality cores (voiced by the ever-brilliant Nolan North) for company.

What a great ending to a great game.

Thanks for reading.

That bit where... Bioshock

"A man chooses...a slave obeys."

Bioshock would most likely be in my top ten games ever, were I to compile one. It contained new and interesting gameplay, a compelling story and a dazzling world that was a real treat to explore. You play as Jack, and at the very start of the game your plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean. As you surface, surrounded by burning wreckage, you notice a lighthouse nearby, so you swim over to it, and find a bathysphere which takes you down beneath the waves. Suddenly, a sprawling city stretches out before you, which in itself is one of the best moments of the game. However, all is not well within Rapture, as it is overrun with Splicers, inhabitants driven insane by addiction to Plasmids - genetic modification.

You are helped out by Atlas, who leads you to safety via radio, and he asks you to help him against Andrew Ryan, who has his family locked away. As the game progresses, you are lead around by Atlas over the radio, with the promise of escape from Rapture and back to civilisation. You begin to learn the history of Rapture, and the war between Ryan and Frank Fontaine, who helped develop Plasmids. Eventually, you come face to face with Ryan himself.

Bioshock - The Death of Andrew Ryan

With Atlas urging me on, I came close to the office of Andrew Ryan. In the adjoining corridor, I saw the words 'Would You Kindly...?" written in blood on the wall. Something stirred within me then, and I had the funny feeling something wasn't right. I mean, I had seen plenty of blood on the wall in this city, but this had something more personal about it. Anyway, I shook it off and continued to Ryan's office, soon this would all be over...

I arrive, and Ryan is nonchalantly playing golf, doesn't he realise I'm here to kill him? I'll let you watch what happens next.

I came out of that cutscene deflated. It turns out that Jack was the illegitimate child of Ryan, and was taken away by Fontaine when he was born, sent to the surface and genetically modified to age rapidly. He was conditioned to accept the code phrase "Would you kindly?", meaning that whenever he heard those words, he would obey whatever the command. It suddenly dawned on me that Atlas (who then reveals himself to actually be Fontaine) had simply been commanding me to do his bidding throughout the whole game. He had even commanded Jack to hijack the plane he was on and cause it to crash near the lighthouse. Fontaine had planned to use Jack against Ryan, as he would be able to use his father's DNA to bypass Ryan's security systems.

It was rare for a video game to have such an incredible setting and story, and even rarer for it to contain a twist such as that towards the end. It was that moment that caused this game to gravitate beyond just being a great game, up to becoming a timeless classic.

"Obey."

Thanks for reading.

That bit where... Crysis

I've been looking through my collection for the "That bit where..." feature, and seeing if a particular moment jumps out at me for each game. If nothing immediately pops into my head, I disregard it and move onto the next one. It also made me realise that I should really organise my game collection in alphabetical order (I'm talking about my physical game collection, remember those weird discs you got in plastic cases?). The first stand out moment that came up while I was looking through was a bit in Crysis.

Crysis - The Mountain

A monumental deal was made of the tech on show in that game, about how pretty it looked, and how you could chop down the trees, and that even the current top of the range gaming PCs couldn't run it on it's highest graphical setting (which was really dumb, by the way). It's a good job that the game itself was pretty good for the most part, I mean it wasn't perfect, it became a pretty run of the mill shooter by the end where it turned into basically a corridor shooter, but the early parts played really well.

What stuck with me the most in Crysis, was the tank mission. The gameplay part of that sequence was most definitely not the best part of the game, but I do remember trundling along, checking out the scenery, firing off a few shells and then THAT MOUNTAIN IS COLLAPSING.

I hadn't really seen something happen of this magnitude before in a game, which I guess makes all the hype about the new CryEngine stuff seem worthwhile now. I'm trying to think back now to where exactly in the storyline this took place, but I do believe it was before you knew that there were aliens on the island (don't quote me on that). This made it all the more cool simply because THE MOUNTAIN IS COLLAPSING and THERE IS AN ALIEN SHIP INSIDE THE MOUNTAIN.

Obviously this was a scripted set piece, but sometimes they are the most magical moments in games when you don't know what to expect. If I think about it, I do remember this cool bit that wasn't scripted at all. It happened in the big sort of bay area, and I believe you had to destroy some AA guns... Anyway, at one point this helicopter started coming after me, so obviously, I ran. The chase took me over the beach, under water, through trees and over bridges as I desperately searched for something to take out this thing. As I was swimming underwater, trying to evade bullets I suddenly heard a muffled explosion. When I came up for air, I saw that the helicopter had accidentally crashed into a cliff, destroying itself and everyone inside it. Again, this was something I had never really seen in a game before, sure, I'd seen my share of exploding helicopters, but they usually came along at a scripted moment and followed a set path until you shot them enough times with your rocket launcher that was handily placed nearby. The fact that I could've gone anywhere I liked, and that the helicopter was just as prone to error as I was, was just really cool to me at the time, and still is.

So there are my favourite moments from Crysis. I've got a list of future ones lined up, but I think my next one will be Bioshock... can you guess what moment I'm going to talk about?

Thanks for reading.

That bit where...

While things are a bit slow, I'm gonna do a little mini feature called "That bit where...". It'll be me explaining some of my favourite moments in video games, both past and present. I'd like a little reader participation here too, so leave a comment if you've got a better moment from the same game, or suggestions for moments from other games. Also let me know if there's something you'd like me to write about or review, and I'll see what I can do.

LOOK OUT: SPOILERS

Obviously since I'm talking about specific moments within video games, I won't be avoiding any spoilers, so steer clear if you don't want to know what happens in the game.



The first game I'll do this for is one of my favourite games of last year, and you've heard me talk about it loads before, but it won't stop me keep writing about:

Bastion
"Then The Kid hears something he ain't heard in a long time...how's it go again? ...yeah, that's the one."

For me, the outstanding moment in Bastion, a game filled with outstanding moments, was when you visit Prosper Bluff.

"Some people just yearn to see the things they're told they can't...and that's why you go to Prosper Bluff."

You're there to try and find a piece of the core of the Bastion, a place where people can come in times of trouble, in order to make it whole again after The Calamity shook apart the world.

You follow what appears to be an old mining cart rail track, fighting off swarming, vulture-like birds, all just waiting to peck apart your body. Among them are much larger birds, who pick their moment and then swoop down on you. There are buttons to open the gates closing off your route, but pressing them causes parts of the world to collapse into nothingness. Things are bad, but all the while, just off in the distance you can hear this old, hypnotic wartime song, being sung by an unseen girl with an enchanting voice.

When you reach the girl, Zia, you may not have found a piece of the core, but you've found something just as precious: another survivor of The Calamity.

The song, combined with the setting and atmosphere sent shivers down my spine the first time I played it. If you haven't played the game before, I'd highly advise you buying the soundtrack edition if you're into music at all, because it is phenomenal. The soundtrack is also available for download here (the song from Prosper Bluff is 'Build That Wall (Zia's theme)', and you can get the game either on Steam or XBLA. Finally, you can find my review here.

Thanks for reading, and again, leave a comment if you like.

The Games of 2012

January is traditionally pretty slow for games, making new posts on a blog about video games fairly hard to come by. If I find the time, I'll be reviewing some lesser known games from last year that I enjoyed (here's hoping that my timetable for the next few months isn't as overwhelming as I feel like it's going to be).

Really, the next game that I'm kind of at all excited about coming out is Mass Effect 3, and that's not until March. I didn't much care for the first game, and barely played any of it, but the second one really grabbed my attention and I started to care about what was going on. This was mostly due to the improved gameplay...I'm told the story in the first game may have been better, but the story in 2 kept me going just fine.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning seems like it could be quite interesting, but I'm going to need more convincing before I buy it for myself. I'm really not a fan of that 'Reckoning' after the colon, it's the first game bearing the Kingdoms of Amalur name, so why does it need a subtitle? Also 'Reckoning' is just the least exciting subtitle to add randomly onto a game isn't it? I guess they just went through the list of possible subtitles beginning with 're'...Revenge, Redemption, Restructured, Rearmed, Remastered, Really...?

It seems that, like last year, most of the blockbuster games will be coming out in the second half of the year. It's possible we might see GTA5 around May/June given Rockstar's recent release schedule, but that's just guessing on my part.

Speaking of Rockstar, Rockstar Vancouver have been making Max Payne 3 fairly quietly in terms of press coverage. What's exciting about that is that the studio's previous game was Bully, which turned out to be rather a surprisingly good game given the setting and subject matter. I'm not sure how much of that experience they'll be able to bring from that game into Max Payne's gritty, film noir world, but if you make good games, you can make good games, right? The release date for that is March, allegedly, so that could be interesting.

I suppose the main games coming out (supposedly) this year are Bioshock: Infinite, Halo 4, Borderlands 2, Diablo 3, Hitman: Absolution, Tomb Raider, Far Cry 3, Guild Wars 2, and Nickelodeon Dance. If all those games do come out this year (barring maybe one of them), then what a colossal year it will be for video games. That's also leaving out the inevitable Call of Duty game, and maybe even an Assassin's Creed game (although I hope not, I'd rather they take another year with that). Perhaps there's a possibility of a Skyrim expansion before the end of the year too? That would be cool, as I think I'm close to finishing all I really want to do in that game now.

 I've probably even missed some off the list...there are quite a few big games to remember... Until I get to play all of them though, I'll go back to NBA, Madden and FIFA (I've been spending an unusual amount of time playing sports games recently), and continue playing LA Noire on the PC (yeah I bought it).

Thanks for reading, enjoy your week.

Steam Deals 31st December + Happy New Year

Oh God damn, LA Noire is £8.74 today, and that includes all the DLC. I've been toying with whether to play through it again recently and now this amazing game has fallen onto my lap, on my preferred platform (PC), with extra content and really cheap to boot. I may have to call this a late Christmas present to myself...

I wrote about LA Noire in my Top Ten Games of the Year list, so you only have to go there to find out what I think about it. If you want the short version...if you haven't played this game, you should buy it today, although if you've got New Years plans you might want to hold off playing it til tomorrow, it's that good.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Both Bioshock games are £3.49? Steam, you are treating us...maybe they thought everyone would be out celebrating by now and would miss the deals? The original Bioshock is an absolute masterpiece, with one of the best realised game worlds ever created. The second wasn't bad either, although didn't quite live up to the magic of the first game. If you've never played them, would you kindly pick up a copy?

Grid is probably the best driving game of this generation. It has tons of cars, a multitude of tracks and great gameplay, along with a highly addictive single player experience which makes you want to keep playing and playing. The multi player was fantastic too, although I will put a warning on this glowing recommendation. Codemasters discontinued the online multiplayer, so if you're looking for the full racing package, I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere (to another Codemasters game).

Dead Island was also on my top ten list, and £15 is well worth it for what was one of the most enjoyable games of the year. It's not quite at the price point of "Well I may as well just buy it," but if you want a high quality zombie killin' game, look no further.

Hitman: Blood Money is a game that kept me coming back to it, years after I had finished it. I had always enjoyed the Hitman games, but this was the first one that really didn't severely punish you for not playing exactly how the game wanted you to play, while also rewarding the people careful enough to go for that Silent Assassin rating. There's a great range of ways to get your murder on, along with some good sadistically humourous moments. All of the Hitman games save for Contracts are on Steam for £1.49 each today, what a bargain!

Happy New Year everyone, hope you're all okay.

Thanks for reading.

Steam Deals and Console Fatigue

Today will be an expensive day for you if you want to get all the quality games in the Steam deal. There's honestly nothing I wouldn't recommend buying (apart from Spacechem because I don't really know what it is beyond it being some sort of puzzle game). Everything else will be just a matter of whether you can justify spending the money on it. The highlight of the deal is probably the GTA games, they're all super cheap and all super fun. If you've played them already, the DLC for GTA4 is also there, which pile on some great content, particularly in the Ballad of Gay Tony.

Other than that, I won't go into any detail for the other games there, just that they're probably all worth a look. Another reason is because the Newcastle game starts in fifteen minutes and I don't have time to write something about the dozen or so games that are in the sale today...you can't say I'm not dedicated.

Quickly though, I wanted to share with you a little sentence I heard today that really jarred me. The first Gears of War game came out on the Xbox 360. You might think "...duh, that's obvious". And it is, but I thought about it for a second, and that means that one of the most important video game franchises of the last decade has lived it's entire lifespan in a single console generation. (I'm sure we'll see another Gears game at some point, but the trilogy containing Marcus et al ostensibly ended in Gears 3) Then I got to thinking and realised that the same is true of Uncharted, and there's probably more I haven't thought about yet. That says to me one thing...This console generation has gone on for far too long already, and it's going to be at least a year, if not quite a bit more until new consoles start making their way onto shelves.

2011 has been a fantastic year for games, but with that comes an underlying sadness: Has the quality of games for this generation reached it's peak? Is the next year or so going to be simple remakes of games that we know are high quality, but aren't really putting out any new innovations? I hope I'm wrong and 2012 brings something new and fresh for gamers, at the risk of playing the same old games month after month.

 "Everything's amazing and yet nobody's happy" comes to mind. Hell, I'll still be playing all of them, they're still top quality games right? Don't really know what I'm complaining about.

Thanks for reading.

Steam Deals 29th - 30th December

A new day, some new deals, here are my picks:

Mafia Collection
I played the first Mafia game a looooong time ago on the PS2, and I enjoyed it...I think. Mafia 2 is a pretty well made game though, and it's definitely worth the £4.99($7.72) that it's currently on Steam for. I will say that when I finished the game, which felt slightly short, at least in comparison to the vast storyline in GTA4, I didn't really feel like I had any reason to go back and play it again. However while I was in the middle of playing, the combat was very enjoyable and it felt like they captured the period just right with great visuals and well realised characters.

Total War Collection
I have some fantastic memories of the first Medieval: Total War and Rome:Total War, and I spent quite a bit of time with Empire but I think other game commitments meant that I didn't get quite as much time out of that as I feel it deserved. They've been making these games for a while now, and they've certainly got them right most of the time. I must say I'm tempted to buy Shogun 2 for £7.49, however I feel that again it wouldn't get my full attention...also I'm not the biggest fan of that style or time period. But that's just me, if you fancy a great quality strategy game, then you should pick up any one of the number of Total War games on sale today.

Left 4 Dead Collection
Man, these games are fun in multiplayer. Whether you're teaming up to get through the story missions or squaring off against each other in the fantastic humans vs zombies versus mode, you're going to have a good time playing these games with friends. You get 75% off today, so be quick if you want to murder many, many zombies...don't be the one to startle the witch though...

Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow people.

Steam Deals - 28th - 29th December

Mostly, I've played all the games on Steam that I actually want to play, so for me, the holiday Steam Deals are more "oh God if I had waited 6 more months or so I could've got a load of money off that game" than "oh God that's a sweet deal!"

So, I've decided to put here the games in the daily deals that I'd advise you to play, and a little bit of why. New deals appear at 6pm GMT every day, so if you miss them, that's your own fault for not reading my new post THE SECOND IT GOES UP. <shameless>To stop that from happening, you should subscribe to my blog!</shameless>

Assassin's Creed Collection
You can pick up Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut for £2.49($3.85), Assassin's Creed 2 for £3.74($5.78), Brotherhood for £10.19($15.75) and Revelations for £22.49($34.77).

I'm gonna go ahead and say that you probably don't need to play the first Assassin's Creed, it was a pretty good game which set up one of the best series of recent years, but the following games improved on it to such an extent that it's now kind of irrelevent. Number 2 was a great game, but it's Brotherhood which has been the real stand out game of the series for me. Everyone expected it would just be the same as 2 in a new setting, given such a short turnaround period, but it blew all of those preconceptions out of the water. Revelations sadly did not live up to the huge expectations set out by Brotherhood, and I'd advise only playing that game if you'd rather play through the storyline rather than just look up the synopsis on Wikipedia.

Machinarium
I picked up this short, whimsical indie game last year when it was super cheap, and wasn't expecting much. But man, those three hours it took me to complete that game were some of the most enjoyable hours I had spent in front of my computer all year (with my trousers on).

It's a point and click adventure, you're a cute little robot and you have to save your girlfriend. It's simple, amazingly pretty and has some really intuitive gameplay mechanics that will make you unable to pull away from the game. And at the moment, it costs merely £1.86($2.88), you should absolutely play this game.

Dungeon Defenders
This is a little third person action rpg/ tower defense game which is pretty good fun to play with a few friends. You pick your class and set up towers to repel Goblin attackers, or if you prefer you can dump points into your combat tree and lay into the horde with one of the many different pieces of loot you acquire along the way. I'm not sure it's worth the full price of the game, but it's out today for £2.49($3.85), which I think is a more than fair price for a bit of fun.

Dead Space Collection
Dead Space is on there for £3.74($5.78), and Dead Space 2 is on there for £4.99($7.72). These are great prices for a couple of really good quality games. In fact, Dead Space 2 made it on to my Top Ten of the Year list, and a fiver for a game on that list is very reasonable indeed. For fans of horror and third person combat, these games are for you.