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.

Steam Deals & Total War: Shogun 2

There have been some pretty sick deals on Steam this week. I picked up Total War: Shogun 2 for a mere £7.50, which is a bargain seeing as the game is barely a year old, and not only that, it was one of the better games of last year.

Total War: Shogun 2

I've played a good few hours so far, and am very much enjoying it. There's one niggling thing that annoys me about it though: I don't know anything about the setting. It makes me wish that the game was set in one of the other time periods the Total War franchise has visited, just with the mechanics from this one. I loved the Medieval, Rome, Empire and Napoleon games, and part of that was probably because those are some of my favourite periods from history. One historical setting I would like to see from the franchise is Alfred era Britain, close to the formation of England as a single country. That would be cool.

In Shogun however, it's feudal Japan, and you take on the responsibilities of one of the multiple clans in the country at that time and embark on your quest to become Shogun. In terms of strategy games in recent times, I've been playing Civilisation 5 and Crusader Kings 2, so it was kind of a shock to come back to the all out war scenario. The game lacks the depth of those other ones due to the fact that the campaign is basically kill or be killed, rather than being able to forge alliances and win through diplomatic or economic victory. But what it lacks there, it makes up for by making the war element so damned fun. 

What has always set the Total War series aside from other strategy games is the real time battle system. Shogun's is just as good as it's always been (it doesn't seem like they've changed it much), and although I don't know much about the setting, it's still pretty awesome to see samurai and the like battling against each other. 

Square Enix Weekend

Today (Saturday through Sunday), you can get 75% off all the Deus Ex games, which, like Shogun, is another steal. £7.50 for Human Revolution, which, while it wasn't as good as we were all hoping it to be after the precedent set by the original, was still one of the better games of last year, horrible boss battles aside. (Which the developer outright apologised for, which I thought was pretty funny)

Speaking of that original, it's £1.50. That's basically zero pounds, come on.

Looks like Thief, Lara Croft, Just Cause, Dungeon Siege, Kane and Lynch and Hitman will also be on sale over the next few days, so be sure to check out what's going on in the Steam store if any of those tickle your fancy.

Remember to check out my new video series, Gaming News of the Week on YouTube! 

Also I'm in the middle of writing a Trials Evolution preview, which I am hella excited about. So look for that over the next week or so.

Thanks for reading, have a good one

Gaming News of the Week

...and now for something completely different.

I decided to try my hand at video editing and speaking into a microphone, and then somehow combining those two things into an interesting (hopefully) weekly (hopefully) feature for your enjoyment!

It will be a run down of the gaming related news from the past seven days, as well as a few extra bits here and there such as me talking about the games I've been playing.

So, here it is! The first ever episode of Gaming News of the Week!

(I'll hopefully get the video embedded soon, it's not showing up on YouTube search results at the moment, which is the only way to do it on Blogspot)

EDIT: There we go.

Thanks for reading/ watching, have a good day!

My ME3 Ending. Is the outrage from fans justified?

Just finished my first (and probably sole) play through of Mass Effect 3. I'll tell you what happened, go through some of the key (but limited) differences in the other endings, and will muse about whether the massive amounts of outrage from fans of the series is warranted. So obviously, spoilers are coming. Don't read if you don't want to know.

My Ending
You are faced with two (or three, depending on certain factors) choices in the final moments of the game. You can destroy the Reapers, or control them (or combine synthetic life with organic life in what sounds like some unholy experiment gone wrong). I chose to control them, which I believe is the paragon ending, I think this is the case because it was blue, not red.

Depending on your galactic readiness rating, which is pretty much based on how many side missions you did, there are a few different ways each choice can pan out. In mine, Shepard dies, the reapers retreat, Earth is saved, the Mass Relays are all destroyed and the Normandy crash lands on some remote planet where Joker, Ashley and EDI emerge unscathed, which confused me as EDI was with me moments before on Earth, but anyway, the credits roll.

Then there's an utterly pointless cutscene after the credits, which suggests that an old man far in the future has been telling his grandchild all the events which have happened throughout the series. Why? What does this add to the ending?

The Outrage
Well, one thing the child says is "Tell me another Shepard story." Uh-oh, DLC on the way, thanks for making sure we all know, Bioware. Then there's just a straight up message saying, "hey, well done for beating the game, but remember to buy the DLC when it comes out!" Apparently, fans of the series didn't quite like that their hundreds of hours spent playing these games culminated in a ten minute cutscene and a message telling them to spend more money. Who knew?

By the way, I looked up what the other endings were after I finished. Turns out they're all the same. Sometimes the shockwave that ends the Reaper threat is red rather than blue though, so that's something. It's a little more varied, sometimes Earth is destroyed and the survival of the Normandy crew is in doubt, but you will have had to have played a pretty awful game to get to that situation. Fans are annoyed that over the course of the three games, they have spent hours shaping their character to be what they want them to be, only to then find out that no matter what choices you have made, you will always be faced with the same decision.

Plot Holes?
Regardless of your choices and actions, the Mass Relays are always destroyed. These are the only means of travelling the galaxy, so that's going to make it difficult for the millions upon millions of alien species which have congregated in Earth's solar system to help defeat the Reapers to leave. Also, I haven't read them, but I'm reliably informed that in some of the fiction, we are told that the destruction of a Mass Relay causes an explosion the same size as a supernova, destroying the solar system it's in. Looks like Shepard just found a way to decimate all forms of life in the galaxy much faster than the Reapers could ever do. Oops!


Speaking of the Reapers, we're told by their creator, why exactly they were created. Get ready now.


He created them billions of years ago, to stop synthetic beings rebelling against their creators and killing them.


So he created synthetic beings, which every now and then would kill all organic life, so that the organic life wouldn't create synthetic beings which would kill them. JackieChan.jpg

I won't go into more details, you can find much a more informative article here about why people are so angry about it.

Are fans right to be annoyed by the ending to Mass Effect 3? Maybe. Probably. But honestly, who cares? Not me. Bioware consistently make fantastic games that we all enjoy playing. Sure, the ending was a little weird, but I still had a good time with the game and would recommend that anyone who hasn't played the Mass Effect games to give them a look as soon as possible. They are quite simply, a collection of the best games of this generation. Anyone who thinks they have the right to demand that Bioware change the ending to one of their games because they didn't think it wrapped up the story quite perfectly is absolutely crazy.

Thanks for reading people, 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

Some games are coming out!

It's February, and there are two games getting released that I'm averagely interested in!

By the way, my Borderlands 2 Preview was the highest rated on Hooked Gamers for January, so thanks for that if you voted it up!

Since then, I've written a DiRT Showdown Preview, and a review of Puddle, so check those out if you haven't already.

Enough of the self-plugging though, because my band is playing at Warwick University Battle of the Bands in two weeks. Oh wait, sorry, games.

The Darkness II
I never played the first one, "oh wah wah, you need to play the original first to get a feel for the story". No. That's what Wikipedia is for.

To tell you the truth, if it wasn't the start of the year and there were other things to be playing, I probably wouldn't be as interested in The Darkness II. It's just that I've played like 300 games of FIFA online now and I need something else to do. And ripping people in half with the evil tentacles coming out of your back, accompanied by an incredibly British monkey sidekick seems the best option.

You're this mafia boss, Jackie Estacado, and your girlfriend died in the first game, (or something, I haven't actually read Wikipedia yet). Anyway, the most important part is that you have this evil force, "The Darkness" living inside you, which Jackie attempts to keep under control, but he has to unleash it when a hit goes out on him so he doesn't die. (Or something, seriously, I'm just in it for the senseless murdering).

If I find it fun enough to play a good chunk of, I'll review it (in a more eloquent manner), so that's something to look forward to.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
EA seems to just want to refer to this as 'Reckoning' now, which is fine by me, it's a pretty long title otherwise. I think I've said before what a stupidly generic word 'Reckoning' is though, but watchagonnado?

Here's a lazy description of Reckoning: It's an Elder Scrolls game but with a more action-oriented combat system. You can hammer on the attack button to do combos and such, and there's an added timing element to pull off different attacks. Seems a cool system, but doesn't seem deep enough to stay really interesting for the dozens of hours the game will last, but we'll see.

There's coloured loot, main quests, side quests, repeatable quests, strange quests, up quests, charm quests and more. I've heard rumours that perhaps 38 Studios have somehow put too much content into the game? Or rather that there is enough content, just that a lot of it isn't exactly exciting (I hesitate to use the word filler without having played it yet).

It'll fill the RPG gap in my life since I Skyrimmed myself out (eww) though, and should be enough to tide me over til we get to see what aberration EA has turned Mass Effect 3 into (I hope that's not true).

I may review Reckoning, could take up too much of my time though given that I have several essays/ courseworks/ revisionings to be doing over the next few weeks, so that's less likely than a Darkness review.

Thanks for reading people, be good.

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... 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.

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.

Matt Porter's Top Ten Games of the Year

Alright, so as promised, I'm sitting on a train writing my top ten games of the year list. It has actually been harder than I thought...about five or six games in I suddenly found that I had run out of ideas. Either the first half of the year or so was pretty slow for games, or I just don't remember what happened. Both are likely, but I fear the former is the truer.

Before I start, I'll quickly say that these are only games that I have played myself. Some honourable mentions go to games such as Gears of War 3 and Uncharted 3, and probably also Modern Warfare 3 to some extent, I'm sure the multiplayer is just as addictive as ever. You can knock CoD for not trying enough, but you can't deny that when all is said and done, they are very well made games. Anyways, here we go:

10. Dead Island
That trailer really left us expecting something great, although what the game turned out to be was unexpected to most people. Whether that's a good or a bad thing depends on your view, but for me it turned out to be a pretty enjoyable game...and I'm definitely not the biggest fan of this new zombie craze that has been around for the last couple of years. I will say that if I had played Gears or Uncharted, then perhaps this and the next game on the list would have been replaced, but that's not to say they don't deserve their places here.

So in this game you kill zombies...lots of zombies. Alright, not as many as in Dead Rising, but still, a lot. It could be primitively described as Dead Rising with multi player and RPG elements, but it's a little more than that. The story is as follows: You are holidaying on an island, you go to sleep, wake up, and then oh no! Zombies! You choose your character based on whether you'd rather be using ranged or melee attacks and set off in search of other survivors and a way to escape.

There's a coloured loot system that you would normally associate with mmorpgs...but that's almost what this game is. There's an open world, quest givers, loot, you level up and choose talent points, and you can jump straight into a game with up to three friends (providing they're not further progressed in the story than you).

The stand out feature of the game though, is the combat system. There's never been a more visceral zombie killing experience. You're breaking bones, chopping off limbs and quite literally shredding their flesh as you fight your war through the environments, and it rarely gets old.

The game is also gorgeous, particularly the opening sunny beach resort area...your typical dark and dreary living dead game this ain't. It's not without its fair share of bugs and glitches though, and the story isn't much better than any other standard zombie story already available. I feel if the developers had spent maybe six months to a year longer on the game, it could've been brilliant, rather than just pretty good.

9. Battlefield 3
Being probably the best multi player experience of the year, it's a shame that the single player didn't live up to it... again resulting in a game that isn't quite as good as it could've been. Although contrary to many critics' opinion, I didn't think the single player was that bad, it was compelling enough for me to finish it anyway.

I was playing on the PC, which mean I could take full advantage of the 32v32 player servers in all their glory. Some people aren't a fan of such games, and prefer the smaller, more strategic maps...but I just love the chaos and carnage that results from sixty-four human beings let loose in a playground of big guns, and a variety of vehicles which range from small Jeeps to fully blown fighter jets. Great fun.


8. FIFA 12
I had my doubts about putting a sports game on this list, given the general prejudice against them from both industry professionals and "hardcore" gamers. So I've limited the amount on the list to one. Happy?

If you've played a Fifa game before, you'll know pretty much what's going on. This year the main change is defence. It's a little harder and a little more nuanced than previous games, and takes quite a bit of getting used to at first. At the attacking end, the pace has also been slowed down a bit, with more emphasis on working the ball around than you're used to. There's a new impact engine, which makes the animations look a bit smoother, especially in the tackles...although it isn't perfect yet. About once a game or so, there'll be a "wait...what?" moment, as the physics on a player spiral out of control, quite literally. 

For fans of the series, and of football in general, it remains the best version of the Beautiful Game you can play without lacing up your boots and heading down the local club on cold Sunday mornings.

As a side note, NBA2K12 is probably a superior game, I just haven't played enough of it yet for it to definitely make an appearance on this list.


7. Dead Space 2
#&*!, what was that?!... #&*! where did it go?... #&*! why won't you die!?!

These are all things you'll frequently hear if you're sitting in a room with someone playing this game. Although they are making the mistake of not playing it alone in a dark room, late at night with some good headphones on (it's a scary game, not what you're thinking from that).

Equal parts jumpy, not-quite-sure-what-that-was-but-it-didn't-look-friendly, and flat out in your face monster horror, Dead Space 2 is a well paced action game, with some fantastically satisfying third person combat. Main character Isaac Clarke returns from the first game, but this time with a face (maybe only to set up this horrifying minigame later on in the game)! As you'd expect from a game like this, you don't need to know much about the story other than: Monster-alien-zombie things, kill them and run.

The action is close to relentless, and when you do get a moment's respite, you're left wondering exactly when the next thing is going to jump out of a wall at you. Nearly always, it's exactly when you expect it's going to...but then it scares the hell out of you anyway. The standout moment of the game for me was the train sequence, which I won't spoil for you by posting a link if you want to actually play it...otherwise I'm sure you'll be able to find it on YouTube. By the way, if you are going to play it, I'd advise you to fail as often as possible, the mini death sequences are superb...look up those too if you're still not going to play it.

6. Portal 2
It seems as though game developers are beginning to understand the idea that their audience actually wants a decent story with good writing, and that this isn't just limited to films and books. Portal 2 is an example of great writing and storytelling, made even more impressive by the fact that there are only a handful of characters. The worry was that the creators couldn't come up with a character as good as Glados from the first game...not only does she return, but she brings with her two new characters that are just as good. I feel a particular connection to the 'friendly' robot you meet at the start of the game as he is voiced by Stephen Merchant, a graduate from my university. That's a lie, I don't feel that connection, but it is a nice little claim to fame.

So we're back to 'Thinking with Portals', and now with quite a bit more. New mechanincs include anti-gravity tubes, light bridges, and different types of gel with make you run super fast or which you can bounce off. Some of the puzzles are just as fiendish as the first game, and still leave you with that real smug sense of achievement when you complete a particularly hard one. I'd also advise finding someone to play the co op with, as it is just as good as the single player, except now you get to troll your friends.

5. LA Noire
I just love that the incredible face capture technology they used in this game means you can actually recognise the actor playing the part.

 John Noble's pretty impressed too.

LA Noire captures everything you know about that film-noir post-war Los Angeles style, throws in an excellent story, great detective work, and some decent shooting and driving sequences, and spits out a fantastic game at you that's very hard to put down. Unlike most detective games, there is no black and white, good or evil outcome to each case, you decide who you think the culprit is, and put them behind bars. Even if your boss would rather you put away the alcoholic homeless man, rather than the upstanding, well known businessman.

The main complaint would be the lack of things to do, given the open world setting. Beyond a few "random" quick side missions, there's not a real point to driving around the city, other than just to explore and experience it the first time round. The open world isn't really needed, just stick to the main story line and you'll be rewarded with thrills, spills, and plenty of kills.

4. Bastion
I'm sure you've already heard me wax poetic enough about this incredible indie game, so I'll just let you read my review if you haven't already, and request that you please, play this game.

 

3. Batman: Arkham City
Once again, I've written enough about this game in my review. It's good, by the way.

 

2. Saints Row: The Third
Apparently I review games I really like. I really like this game.

aaaaaaand finally... 

1. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 
I also really like this game, but I haven't got round to reviewing it, and perhaps never will because...where do you begin with Skyrim?

 I'll give it a go...I'll start with that bit where I...wait that reminds me about when...but then also that bit with the... This isn't working...

The Bethesda open world rpgs have been around for quite a while now, and they've always been pretty good, although I think many people look back on Oblivion with rose-tinted glasses...It was a fine game, but was certainly aided by the fact that the 360 launched with barely any good games, and Oblivion was the first one to come along with something new and interesting. Anyway, Skyrim is by far the best attempt at this style of game that anyone has ever created. It's still not without it's fair share of bugs, magic resistance and backwards dragons aside, but that's almost accepted as a quirk of the genre at this point. 

Skyrim is a phenomenal achievement, which gives you the greatest amount of freedom ever seen in a video game. Think of something you'd like to do within the bounds of this style of world. Okay, you can't do that, think of something less weird... How about rolling two and a half thousand cheese wheels down a mountain? Why? Why not?! 

The amount you can do is staggering, even after spending just a few hours in the game, your map will be littered with dungeons, towns, keeps, bandit camps and towers, and you'll feel compelled to visit all of them, because chances are there's a fantastically involved short quest involved with the area. You could spend literally hundreds of hours in the game without even touching upon the main story quest, and there are vast areas of the map you will never explore if you stick to the main missions, which is amazing in a modern video game, especially one which takes so much effort to make. Skyrim probably has the best main story questline out of any previous effort from Bethesda, Fallout games included. Do you like dragons? Do you like killing? Mmhmm...

I do hope Skyrim is an example of what is to come from more video games, especially with a new console generation looming, I for one can't wait.

Turns out 2011 was a pretty good year for games after all, here's to 2012 being even better.

Happy Holidays everybody, thanks for reading. 

Top 10 Games of the Year + NBA2K12

Tomorrow, I'll be on a train for four and a half hours, so I'm going to use some of that time to draw up my list of the best games of 2011 and write some stuff about them. If you've read some of my previous posts you'll probably have a good idea of at least a few of the games that will be on there, but hopefully there'll be a few surprises.

For now though, I'll talk to you about NBA2K12 because that's pretty much all I've been playing over the last couple of days. I decided to buy it because it was cheap on Steam (which is also the reason I buy a lot of games). Anyway, here we go:

This isn't a review because I haven't played enough of it yet. I've barely scratched all the different game modes. The one I've been playing the most is the one where you create your Basketball man and join a team and start playing out your career. Goodness me, it's addictive, and I'm not even very good. Well I say I'm not very good...I've won the "Rookie of the Month" award twice now, although that could just be a gameplay thing that makes you want to keep going.

In this Create a Player mode, you start out by playing a single game in front of all the bosses of the teams in the NBA. Your performance is rated and after the game you go into a little interview situation with some of the teams where they ask you questions and you can pick one of four answers, the most amusing ones being the options which might as well be labelled "I am an arrogant ass". This is a nice little touch that helps you connect more with your guy more than in similar modes in other sports games.

So you get drafted by a team, and then work your way up from bench warmer, to starting line up. As you play, you earn skill points by doing good things, like scoring, assisting, good defending and so on. However you also lose skill points by not performing as well, committing turnovers, missing your shots etc. Then you can use these skill points to increase your attributes, like shooting, defending and passing. It could just be that I'm bad, but these skill points seem to accumulate very slowly, at least in relation to my main point of reference, the create a player mode in Madden 12. In that game I had pretty much maxed out all of my main attributes about halfway through my second season.

Anyway, that mode is great, and the gameplay is very fun. All of the animations look really slick, and most importantly, your player usually does exactly what you want him to do. The most annoying thing about Fifa (other than Sweaty Goals) is when you see a great opportunity for a pass, you hit the button, and your player tries to pass to the wrong guy and it gets intercepted. The game looks GREAT as well, and they've done a really good job of making you feel like you're watching a real NBA game. There's the Halftime Report where you get taken to other games happening at the same time, little cutaways in between quarters showing you upcoming big games, and a few other neat little touches.

On top of the great gameplay, the commentary is phenomenal... by far the best I've heard in any sports game. They seem to know what exactly is going on, and how it relates to the overall game, and even the season. The commentators can also be in the middle of a thought, and then break away to some big play that just happened in the game. Then after that, they'll say something like "Anyway, back to that..." and carry on with their thought! It's just the little touches like that that make this game really impressive, and I'm not surprised that it won the sports game of the year at the VGAs.

As I said, I've barely touched on the other game modes. I look forward to playing games as a whole team, and I'm told that the mode where you play historic games is really well put together too.