Backlog progress #6

A very Xbox 360 update today! I had a rather large group of 360 titles on my list and decided to plough through a few of them:

GTAIV: The Lost and Damned: Completed

Supposed to be a very decent addition to the GTAIV universe but I found it boring and lacking any real advancements of the original game: Rockstar didn’t really learn much from Niko’s story it seems. It’s not bad by all means but GTAIV is a very clunky game anyway and that didn’t change with this.

GTAIV: The Ballad of Gay Tony: Completed

This too I found clunky and whilst the parachuting levels were cool it was all very samey, theres very little to differentiate between all three stories to be honest. I know it’s the same game but for such a premiere developer and their biggest franchise I think Saints Row has certainly done much better of creating variety and fun stuff to do in a game like this even if Volition lack the technical prowess of Rockstar (it still looks great I’ll give it that).

Ultimately the story was alright but again felt like they ran out of ideas. Maybe the multiplayer improvements are what makes the episodes worth it?

Asassins Creed 2: completed
I enjoyed the first one towards the end but it got a bit repetitive as there wasn’t a whole lot to do apart from the main quests. A friend of mine said that the first one was proof of concept and the second was a great game and he’s spot on. Lots more to do, the graphics are awesome (even 2 years on), ezio’s responsiveness to the controls has improved over Altair even if it’s still not perfect.

The only disappointing part of the game for me was the lack of development of Desmond but I think Brotherhood might have more of that.

It’s a great game though, I’ve ordered Brothehood although Zavvi seem to have a complete lack of interest in taking my money and sending it.

Bioshock 2: Completed
My most recent game to be taken out of the backlog and into the completed section.

It’s a worthy sequel in my opinion. If you’re going to use the same setting there is not much you can do with the material in a rapture Bioshock sequel. My issue is that the story was a bit odd, no final boss to speak of and there wasn’t much of a starting point for it but I guess it did its job.

It’s a really good game though, I enjoyed it although I don’t ever need to go back to rapture. Im not really the “get hyped” for a sequel kind of guy (except in certain circustances) but I will play Bioshock Infinite at some point as hopefully it will bring a much needed shake-up to the Bioshock franchise.

As you can see I’m making significant progress with my backlog, I’m now officially into games with a release date no later than March 2010!

Halo Wars: RTS at its finest.

I used to play C&C: Red Alert Retaliation on PS1. The controls did their best but ultimately were not the best version ever. I also played LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth 2 which was competent but not ground-breaking on the controls front. Now step up Ensemble studios.

Halo Wars takes the simplest of approaches to the controls: Left bumper control all units, right bumper controls all units that are on screen, X is move/attack, Y is special abilities, left is zoom around the map and right trigger is scroll through selected units. Such a simple solution that completely fixes the issue of RTS on console.

When I say “completely fixes”, it was a joy to play it. No white boxes to drag across the screen, just select your units and go. Simple, quick and effective. One could say its almost too simple but I personally think it would be reaching to come out with such a statement.

Getting into the game itself, and it is an excellent Halo game in its own right. The presentation is excellent especially the cut-scenes, and the ability to make as many of favourites such as the Warthog, Scorpion, ODSTs and also bring in new vehicles such as the cobra and flame soldiers really does show Ensemble did their research.

The missions themselves are usually standard “use the base to build an army and attack the flood/covenant” but it gets harder towards the end which is good. I’ll be honest it’s not the best campaign ever but it’s certainly fun to play and the ability to play skirmish missions and online certainly help the game.

The biggest disappointments are the lack of a covenant campaign and the fact that the flood aren’t playable at all. This is a real shame as it would have made for an interesting point of view to play the game from (not to say that the Arbitor levels in Halo 2 were good, however) and also the lack of playable flood is very disappointing as they are actually in the game already.

Those negative aside Halo Wars is a great RTS, not “console RTS” as a game in its own right its extremely well executes and solved the age old problem of RTS on console.

Orcs Must Die! The perfect downloadable game

Robot Entertainment were formed from the ashes of Ensemble studios who made the excellent Halo Wars (post coming soon) and Age of Empires so I knew the sort of quality I could expect.

Orcs Must Die! is a tower defence game at heart but with a twist. Instead of putting down towers and letting the game play out, you lay down traps and control the character (“the apprentice”) as well and can use your sword, crossbow, or magic such as fire, ice, electricity and wind.

There’s a lot of content on the game which is one of the first things I want to give Robot Ent. credit for, there’s a ton of levels each with vast differences which make you think in different ways and lots of enemy types/traps to go with that too. It’s this variety that is why I love the game so much.

The traps are so much fun to use and the difference strategies you can use are almost endless. Trap placement is of critical importance as you can really capitalise from a path in many different ways with the right formation. You also have to consider the best way to kill the enemies, for example on levels where you get branching paths it makes a lot of sense to put a barricade up get down one path and pummel them with a variety of wall arrows, spikes and guardians – unless you have flying orcs which then completely throw your gameplan upside down!

There are few words that accurately describe how good this game is. I bought the DLC pack the other and have been working my way through the new traps on that and I’m pleased the DLC has made the game more enjoyable.

The only thing the game lacks in my opinion is a co-op and a map editor. I’d love to be able to get a friend in and slay some orcs together whilst also trying building my own levels would be pretty awesome too, but as you can see these are just features to give the game longevity as opposed to fixing things that are broken in it.

One of my favourite games and I hope this post has inspired you to go and play it! (btw I played it on XBLA but also bought the PC version even though my PC is broken)

Backlog progress #5

I’ve not done one of these in a year! Here’s a round-up of the games I’ve completed recently:

Killzone 2: Completed
Having finally got a new PS3 for Christmas i restard killzone 2 and really enjoyed it. It’s a little awkward as times and I do think it should be third person but I really enjoyed it. It also still looks great, has some decent weapons and I like the backstory.

The only problem I had with it really is that it’s not. Long game but it drags on at times so perhaps it requires something to mix it up a bit which hopefully the third one has.

Resistance 2: Completed
When I first played Resistance 2 I didn’t enjoy it and this significantly put me off going back to it. After completing Killzone 2 I did play it and enjoyed it much more than I remember. The weapons in Resistance make the game in my opinion, the characters are forgettable, the graphics aren’t mind blowing but some of the weapons such as the auger (shooting through walls) and the magnum (blow up bullets) are a lot of fun to use.

The third one is kicking around somewhere in my house so I’ll play that at some point hopefully.

Halo Wars: Completed
I’m going to give Halo Wars it’s own post but I will say here I loved it.

Halo 3: ODST
Completed this and Halo Wars in the same day (not from the beginning!) and found the hub world a bit empty and uninteresting. I also felt the game bailed out at the end going back to the tried and tested Warthog level.

That said it looks quite nice graphically and Bungie did try to mix the gameplay up with a new gun and the visor which was quite cool. I’d prefer it if Halo 4 didn’t go the open world/hub world approach though (under new management anyway do hopefully they have a few new ideas up their sleeves).

Given up on: Sonic Unleashed.

Why? Weresonic. Who plays a sonic game and thinks “I WISH HE WERE A WERWOLF TOO”? I can answer that question for you: not a single god damn person. As you can tell discussing this game annoys me because the sonic levels are actually playable.

I’ve got some interest in Sonic Generations but I think I’ll stick to Sonic 4 which I bought episode 1 of on XBLA the other day.

2012

2012 could very well be the last full year of this generation (unless Microsoft launch the Xbox 720 in line with current rumours) so its natural that perhaps things could be winding down however 2012 still looks to be a big year for gaming.

On a personal level here are the games I’m most looking too:

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (Ubisoft)
Xbox 360/PS3

GRAW was my 4th Xbox 360 game and a game I loved especially online, it sold very well and I think it’s a big part of the reason why modern warfare games became as big as the have done this generation. The cover system was well implemented, seperate co-op mode and the gameplay excellent with all the gadgets, the enemy tags and team work.

I’m a bit disappointed Ubisoft never made GRAW3 but this doesn’t seem like a radical departure from it so hopefully it’s in the same vein and just as good.

Halo 4 (343i/Microsoft) Xbox 360

As a big fan of the Halo games I own all of them except Reach (which I’ve still played and completed). Microsofts big franchise is in new hands and I’m very much looking forward to playing as Master Chief again after adventures with Noble Team, ODST and the RTS spin-off Halo Wars (which I’m currently playing through).

With a new developer I think there’s a chance to bring fresh life into the series and improve what Bungie built.

Uncharted: Golden Abyss (Sony Bend/Sony) PSVita

The stand out title in a fairly lacklustre launch line-up but how good does it look? It seems Sony Bend’s ability to produce handheld titles of main console games hasn’t deteriorated and it looks like a genuine addition to the Uncharted franchise.

Hopefully its actually good as I’m making it out to be and it could be a real system seller.

Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft) Xbox 360/PS3/PC

After the clunky, awkward and fairly disappointing second game Far Cry 3 seems to understand what went wrong with the second and has gone back to the tropical island setting of the Crytek-developed first (and the Xbox spin-off) The first is one of my favourite games (although has aged horribly) so a proper sequel to that would be appreciated!

The war torn Africa setting of 2 was a let down because it didn’t feel like a Far Cry game at all, and I think it probably wasn’t until Ubisoft thought “OMG! It’s a bright setting not too dissimilar to a tropical island! Let’s stick the Far Cry name on it!” so with a proper Far Cry setting I expect big things.

Hitman:Absolution (IO Interactive/Eidos) Xbox 360/PS3/PC

Hitman Blood Money is one of my favourite games of all time and one of a few games I’ve completed 100% achievements for. It’s been a long time coming but a new Hitman is finally due out in 2012.

I’m hoping it’s going to be every bit as stealthy and full of atmosphere as the previous one, initial reports suggest its been changes quite a lot but hopefully it just been mixed up a bit and it stays faithful to the series roots.

As you can see a significant amount of sequelitis going on there but in an I industry dominated by sequels it’s hard to find an upcoming IP I’m more in than a series I already know.

I do have a great amount of interest in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning which is due to get a demo next week.

Other notable mentions:

Alan Wake American Nightmare (Remedy/Microsoft) XBLA
Syndicate (Starbreeze/EA) Xbox 360/PS3/PC
South Park: The Game (Obsidian/THQ) Xbox 360/PS3/PC
Tony Hawks Pro Skater HD (Robomodo/Activision) XBLA/PSN

Playstation Vita: What it will take to get my money

As you can see I’m yet to update my categories from “NGP”/”PSP2″ to Playstation Vita but it’s on my list of things to do.

I previously wrote a post about the Vita when it was first announced and now just 7 weeks or so from European launch it’s time to consider whether to keep my pre-order or not.

I have no problem with the amount of buttons/control schemes on the Vita I think it offers the ability to play every type of game in the way the developer wants it to be played without much/any compromise and the machine is a powerful little beast meaning not that much of a comedown from my usual standard of graphics and performance I would expect on my PS3/Xbox 360.

My issue with it then comes in two areas: the line-up and the compatibility with the PS3.

The launch line-up for the console in my opinion is fairly lacklustre, from both Sony’s point of view and third parties. Outside of Uncharted: Golden Abyss there is little to get excited about and there is also very little from third parties. The problem I find with third party games is these do these terrible spin-offs (see Splinter Cell:Essentials) that no-one wants. What I want is feature parity with my console games, I want the same game to play on the train as I can get in my full console and I want a decent line-up of games.

I have interest in the new Killzone and Resistance titles for Vita but we don’t know when they are actually due. I’m also expecting a better attempt at a Gran Turismo game than Polyphony managed with GT:PSP. The other issue here is the continued reliance on the same IPs to sell their hardware, I’m hoping sooner or later Sony take a risk and make a new IP for Vita that is big budget and a proper experience on the go that isn’t cut-down.

My final point is the list of developers currently working on Vita doesn’t do much to excite me, after getting Unreal Engine to work on it Epic have since said they are not working on a game for it, and Call of Duty is still MIA for it. Hopefully this situation changes soon.

The other feature I want from the Vita is one they have alluded to but not yet come through on. I want to transfer my game (at preferably no cost) to the vita and take it with me. For example, I want to play Deus Ex on my PS3 then transfer the save to my PSV and carry on from the same spot when I’m halfway between Basingstoke and London Waterloo if it suits me. That’s the dream.

It’s a feature that Hideo Kojima has talked about with his “transfarring” on PS3 Peace Walker and one I think would be excellent for Sony. It would give them a unique feature to hold over buying the game on Xbox 360 (or future versions) and will give customers great value for money on their purchases.

If Sony can pull off those two (decent line-up is probably the most important) then I’m in. As it stands though whilst I have a lot of interest in the PS Vita I’m still to be convinced Sony have actually learnt their lessons from the PSP.

My GOTY 2011

Unlike most award ceremonies this one isn’t going to be held 6 months after the period ended.

It was only really a toss-up between two games, as whilst I enjoyed a lot this year these were the only two that really made me want to play them.

Runner up: Gears of War 3 – Xbox 360
(Epics Games/Microsoft)

One of my favourite game series since the first arrived on e-day 2006. The game looks great, plays great and just is great. One of the most influential game series this generation (from a mechanics/engine point of view) and rightly so. Gears 3 has continued to better the series whilst maintaining that same tight gameplay and one of only a few series to properly pull off the cover system it uses.

I loved every minute of the game, the locations were varied as were the enemy types and it really built upon what Epic improved on in the third game. Where is falls short of being GOTY is story. Epic cocktease this great background story they’ve got and answer very few questions in the game which I found to be ridiculous. I’ve heard a lot of the answers are in the booKs which I intend to check out but considering everything they elude to I think Epic would have produced a better game had they answered more in game.

For that reason Gears of War 3 gets my runner up for GOTY.

Winner: Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Xbox 360
(Eidos Montreal/Eidos/Square Enix)

This sort of experience is why I play games. There’s a funny story as to why I even bought the game in the first place. I was browsing a neogaf thread about video game morgues and someone posted a picture of a toilet from DX:HR and I liked the image so much i went and bought the game based on it. No videos, no review scores – just a picture of a toilet.

And its probably the best thing I did in 2011.

I immediately felt drawn into the world, the futuristic setting really appealed to me and I have a lot of interest in RPGs at the moment.

What I liked best though was the choice of how I went about playing the game, I could either be stealthy or guns blazing. This meant I could be sneak around until I got caught then shoot my way out of it which was nice as I’m not all that good at being stealthy.

The story is extremely engaging and as someone who enjoys the conspiracy theory style I think the game hit every button. Combining that with a decent third-person cover system which completed the great mechanics of the game with decent graphics and it has to be my game of the year. It’s been a long time since I was so desperate to get back from work just to play a game for an hour or two in the evening.

The only place the game lets itself down is the outsourced boss fights but with decent augmentation upgrades they’re certainly not that hard.

Those two complete my GOTY for 2011, hopefully I’ll get to play some games equally as good in 2012.