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.

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.