LA Noire Review

My review of LA Noire has been published at Game Kudos. I found the game to be equal parts outstanding and disappointing. Overall, the technological achievements and the main game mechanics make for an excellent interactive gaming experience, however, the choice to root the game in Rockstar’s familiar formula of 3^rd person GTA style open world exploration detracts from an otherwise excellent adventure.

I think LA Noire could be a contender for game of the year but, unfortunately, I believe the game – as good as it is – promised so much more.

Falling out with New Vegas

I hate that I hate the conclusion of Fallout: New Vegas. The immersive and deep Fallout universe has had me hooked for years. The franchise’s detailed back-story, the spectrum of quirky characters and the freedom of story development all combined to create the most entertaining time sink I have experienced for a long time.

I am drawn into the style and themes of Fallout. I enjoy the 1950’s based b-movie aesthetic and the nostalgic homage to Americana shrouded in the grim realisation of cold war paranoia. I love the figurative tilt-of-the-hat to terrible sci-fi, the clunky and often ridiculous technology that could be lifted straight from Forbidden Planet or Flash Gordon. So much of the make-up of the game appeals to my inner geek. In both Fallout 3 and New Vegas, the story is engaging varied and can be approached from various angles depending on player disposition. The main story, the seemingly limitless number of side-quests and the ability to roam and explore endlessly combine to provide longevity of gameplay that far outstrips most other titles.

New Vegas’s gameplay isn’t a leap forward from Fallout 3, but I still enjoyed the mix of RPG and 1^st/3^rd person shooter. The game allows players to approach combat in a variety of ways, employing stealth, strength or guile to achieve their aims, lay waste to foes and progress toward a player-choice determined conclusion. Unfortunately, despite the best part of 70 hours of gameplay and a series of excellent quests and encounters, glitches and plot holes in the ending have left me deflated.

In the story strand that I followed, my ending resulted in an encounter with a character I had not yet met in the course of the game, but who greeted me as an old comrade and referred to a previous meeting and conversation that never happened. To my great annoyance at the height of the final battle the graphics became glitchy, although I had experienced glitches in-game prior to this juncture and an internet search has assured me that it’s not a universal problem. It’s because of the excellent gaming experience leading up to the end that the below standard conclusion annoys me as much as it has.

I do not expect the game to be perfect; perfect probably isn’t possible. However, considering the time and detail put into the game, these few problems at the crescendo of the game should have been ironed out. I’m not sorry I played New Vegas – it was my favourite game since Mass Effect 2 – but I am disappointed that I hated the execution of my story’s conclusion, if not the content. I don’t feel the urge to revisit it immediately and follow the other possible conclusions, but when I do get around to it I hope they will lead to a more complete understanding of the relationship between my character and the random NPC I encountered this time. Hopefully my 360 will choose not to glitch at the critical moment too.

Worst. Game. Ever.

Last month I was sent a promotional copy of Access Games’ Deadly Premonition to review in my capacity as writer for Game Kudos. The game’s concept is an interesting one; a murder mystery, survival horror title with an open world game mechanic. It’s based around an FBI agent’s investigation into the ritualistic murder of a young woman in the fictional US town of Greenvale.

When I first heard of the game I looked forward to its release, as the genre and story appealed to me. The game was released in the USA 6 months before Europe, so I had to wait a while to get hands on, while gamers over the pond got to grips with it in April. This meant that US reviews were available online months before the game’s release in the UK. Interestingly, Deadly Premonition polarised game critics; some claimed it to be the best game ever made, others condemned it as, literally, a console seller: "Once you play it, you'll want to sell your system."

Regardless, I looked forward to playing and reviewing it, but before the end of the uninspiring opening sequence I feared the worst. Despite the excellent concept, the game is flawed on every level. Poor graphics, awful sound, unbelievably slow gameplay, an un-empathic and randomly schizophrenic protagonist, a mind-bogglingly difficult and restrictive control system, ridiculous camera angles, bizarre enemies (zombie-type creatures literally bent over backwards, slowly trying to put their hands in your mouth???) and annoying voiceovers that feel like a badly dubbed foreign movie are just some of the lowlights.

Deadly Premonition is a good game concept executed very badly. It has gems here and there; the requirement to wash, shave, fuel your car, clean your windscreen, chat to Greenvale’s population and piece together the puzzle and capture the Raincoat Killer are some of the smarter aspects. Unfortunately, the below par performance of almost every part of the game vastly overshadow any potential the title may have had.

Sadly, Deadly Premonition takes the title of “worst game I’ve ever played on the Xbox 360”.

My full review, published at Game Kudos, can be read here.

I just don’t ‘get’ Halo

With the imminent release of Halo: Reach I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring and explain why I won’t be buying it; I just don’t ‘GET’ Halo. And I have tried. I got a copy of the first game free with my first Xbox console. I played the second game through in a co-op multiplayer, but there my experience ended, for a while anyway.

Halo is huge, I understand that. Aside from the games, which have sold more than 34 million copies worldwide, the series has spawned 6 best selling novels, comics, toys and other merchandise making the Master Chief and the non-oiled-up Spartans icons of the modern gaming age. But, for me, Halo just doesn’t do it. I have had cause to consider why recently, and what I found has surprised me.

I love sci-fi. I enjoy StarTrek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica (old and new) and films like Serenity and 2001: A Space Odyssey rank among my favourites. From a gaming perspective I grew up playing Elite and other Space based games as well as early FPS games such as Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. More recently tiles such as Mass Effect and Dead Space have sapped countless hours from my life so Halo’s setting, themes and back-story should have me gripped right? Sadly no.

Then what of the FPS genre itself? I have played and enjoyed more FPS games than any other genre I can think of. From Goldeneye to Wolfenstein, Band of Brothers, Call of Duty, Left 4 Dead, Rainbow 6; there’s nothing I like more than running around a well-rendered map staring down the sights of weapon at my enemies and then ending them. Again, Halo ticks this box as one of the archetypal titles in the FPS genre, so why don’t I care about stopping the Covenant from overrunning Earth and destroying humanity the best way I know how?

One of my biggest complaints about a lot of FPS games is the formulaic nature of vehicle-based levels. Sitting on the back of a Jeep firing mindlessly at anything that moves tends to bore me and many excellent titles fall at this hurdle, in my opinion, but the Halo games don’t. They do vehicles well, with multiple vehicular positions, driver, passenger and gunner, giving variety to the portions of the game that they occupy. But it still doesn’t grip me.

So what about graphics? Is it that the colourful settings and characters, the brilliant blue skies and the bright green or purple vehicles have soured my perception? Again I don’t think so. Games like Borderlands have much more bright and cartoon graphics than any of the Halo series and yet I thoroughly enjoyed rampaging around Pandora’s bright wastelands.

And what of gameplay? Halo was one of the first FPS to integrate more complex console controls into an ergonomic and instinctive control system. It’s multiplayer, whilst not new, was a great addition and dominated Xbox LIVE for a very long time, even after Xbox 360 came along. I used to play Halo 2’s multiplayer on split screen with my friends and we had a lot of fun, but I still preferred Soldier of Fortune’s multiplayer, which seemed more considered and somehow less ridiculous. Recently, when trying to organise an online get together with my friends we discovered that of all the games we collectively owned Halo 3 was the top hit, and out of all my friends I was the only one without a copy, so I acquiesced and bought it from Amazon for a mere £10.

When it arrived I decided to give Halo another chance, not just for multiplayer shenanigans, but also on the single player campaign. This was when I had my epiphany. A mere two levels into the game I realised why it was that I didn’t love the other games, or care about the release of ODST; the missions seemed fake. I’m not talking about realism, I have written before about how I feel realism is not required or indeed possible in games, but a feeling of pointlessness and fakeness about the motions of the game. The player seems herded through the story rather than driven or lead, the voiceovers seem strained and unconvincing and you can’t aim down your weapons sights! It’s a minor thing, I know, but I ‘feel’ more involved in a shooter if my left trigger raises my sights to my eye so that I can take better aim. Halo’s weapons feel like toys too, with the colourful beams of light slowly causing damage to the enemies rather than short, sharp, loud explosive thumps hammering against your foes with thunderous impact. The sound distracts me, the weapon noises are dull and the enemy vocals are just plain annoying, especially those squealing little buggers.

For all of its individually excellent aspects, Halo just doesn’t come together for me or make me want to care. I don’t feel driven as I progress the game and I don’t get that feeling of achievement when I pass a particularly difficult section of the game. The drama of Halo is lost on me and I think it is mainly my fault. With so many fans of the series around the world I’m clearly the difficult one here, but I won’t apologise for it, and I won’t pay for something that I know won’t entertain me.

So this year while many of you are spending your time with Reach, I’ll be happily battling Dead Rising 2’s zombie hordes, enjoying some post-apocalyptic gambling fun in Fallout: New Vegas and giving more of my money to Activision for the latest Call of Duty, but I won’t be sharing in the Spartans’ adventures. I’ll still be playing Halo 3 multiplayer with my friends, mainly so that I can spend some time having fun with them, but I won’t be buying any more Halo games and I don’t feel that I’d missing anything anyway. I don’t hate Halo, I just don’t ‘get’ it.

Golf and War, together at last…

As promised, I’m linking up the reviews and articles that I have had published at other sites. Today’s selection comes from Game Kudos.

I recently reviewed Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 on the Xbox 360. The full review is at the link, but the short version is:

A great golfing game; simply the best golf simulator I have ever played. The clever use of the analogue control system gives the player a level of “feel” and control usually only experienced in golf games on the Wii. Accurately rendered courses, largely great visuals (with a couple of below par aspects) and immersive gameplay. Clever XP system for character building that almost takes the game into the realms of an RPG. Ryder Cup mode gives the game an extra sense of competition and career mode will ensure game longevity. PGA Tour 11 has a superb selection of online game modes and competitions with up to 24 player multiplayer team matches. If you like golf, you’ll love this; if you don’t, you won’t.

Overall Score: 8.2/10

I also wrote a review of an older game, Call of Duty: World at War. Again, full version of the review is at the link, short version:

Good addition to the Call of Duty series. Familiar CoD game mechanics and graphically similar to Modern Warfare, World at War takes the series back to its WW2 roots. New “occlusion” sound technology creates a more immersive experience due to sound muffling (thick walls muffle sounds more than thin) and players can tell if a gunshot was fired nearby or in the distance. Good use of two-theatre story line, both of which have a feeling of retribution as the protagonists struggle to repel the invading forces of the Axis powers. It sports a great multiplayer mode that elongates the life of this game exponentially. Fans of Call of Duty will love it, as will FPS fans in general, but there isn’t much new except Nazi Zombies, an excellent sub-game that unlocks after the completion of the single player campaign.

Overall Score: 7.5/10

Both reviews were edited by Dennis Scimeca, GK’s editor-in-chief and writer of gaming blog Punching Snakes.

Red Ring Of Death! - Farewell to a friend, and hello to a sexy new model

After 5 long years and countless hours of awesome (and some not so awesome) gaming, my trusty Xbox 360 slipped away to a better place last week. The dreaded “Red Ring of Death” left its mark on my otherwise happy home. For the uninitiated, the Xbox 360 has a ring of lights surrounding its power button that are generally green. Green is good. When those lights turn red then you have issues. It means that, for one reason or another, your console is dead or dying and needs repair.

The warning signs came a couple of weeks ago, when playing Borderlands the screen froze a few times. That was followed by one red segment of the ring being displayed. Panicked and confused I blurted my worries to the world in general over Twitter. Surprisingly, the good people at Xbox Support, who obviously trawl the social networking site looking for poor unfortunates like myself, got in touch with a solution to my problem. They sent me a message linking a help forum at their website dealing directly with “Red Ring of Death” and the solution described therein worked. I was pleased.

Sadly, one week later the inevitable happened; the screen froze again and this time it was accompanied by a full “Red Ring of Death”. Nothing in Xbox Support’s solution arsenal was effective and I had to accept the fact that my old friend was gone.

Ordinarily you can send your console off to Microsoft for repair, but only if you’re still within your warranty period, and as mine was a launch model my warranty had expired years ago. I was forced to submit to the inevitable, to lay my old friend to rest and to visit my local store for a replacement.

As timing would have it, a sexy new model, the Xbox 360 slim, was launched recently and has improved in many ways upon the original 360. With a smart shiny black veneer, the slim is more compact than its predecessor and has built in WiFi. The model I bought came with a 250GB hard drive, a vast improvement on the 20GB of my old launch model, and the cooling fan is nearly silent, quite unlike the sound made by my old console, which was reminiscent of Seaking helicopter launching. What’s more, the system makes a satisfying “Ping” noise when you press the eject button (simple things please simple minds).

However, I have cause for concern. When I bought the slim the helpful staff member at my local Game store told me that some people have been experiencing problems with the new console. She claimed that fans break, the laser disk reader burns the faces of the disks on occasion and many have suffered the same catastrophic shut-down that killed my old model. What worried me most was when she said “You don’t need to worry about Red Ring of Death, you don’t get them with this console. Oh, that’s not because they don’t break, Microsoft have just removed the red light bulbs!” A grim thought indeed.

That said, forewarned is forearmed and I’ll be on the lookout for any of these supposed problems. As it stands the new slim is occupying old-faithful’s plinth and is serving very well. Something about the whole experience has been niggling at the back of my mind though, and I have finally put my finger on it. Many who I have spoken to about the demise of my first 360 have expressed surprise that it lasted as long as it did. One of my friends told me he was on his 4^th model, having suffered “Red Ring of Death” 3 times.

I’m now wondering why we, as consumers, accept this. Surely something as expensive as an Xbox 360 should be expected to last more than a couple of years, and the general acceptance of regular breakdowns is infuriating. These things should work. Unless you drop them, spill something on them or leave them on too long and overheat them, why don’t they just keep working? It’s not for this post, as I intend to research this more and write about it more thoroughly and thoughtfully, but can you imagine if you bought a car and then after 2 years it catastrophically broke down only to hear from the world in general that that was expected, and have you checked your warranty? I wonder how many people would buy an expensive TV or other household appliance if the life expectancy were so low.

However, I have my entertainment for now, my gaming may continue. But I’ve got my eye on you, Xbox, and I will be far from pleased if this happens again.

DLC: Elongating gaming experience or simple profiteering?

DLC may now be an institution in gaming, but it is not a universally acclaimed practice. There are complaints about cost, and the deliberate withholding of content by game developers from the release of titles to ensure extra revenue streams shortly after the bulk of initial sales are made. DLC add-ons for games like Fallout 3, GTA IV, and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion are touted as a great value by developers and gamers alike, as they represent entirely new content created after the game's release.

Other "DLC," however, such as the downloadable costumes for characters in Street Fighter IV were not, in fact, downloads. They already existed on the disk. Players pay for unlocks, not downloads, and therefore many of them feel they are paying twice for content. Many gamers also feel cheated when add-ons are released shortly after the release of the game proper, for example the extra downloadable missions for Assassin’s Creed 2 and Mass Effect 2. If this content was available so close to the release of the game, why wasn't it included to begin with? Capcom faced criticism over Resident Evil 5, which had a downloadable Versus mode. When players paid and downloaded the content the file size was a mere 2 megabytes, leading players to believe that this mode was on the disk already.

When loyal fans discovered that the first batch of content for Bioshock 2 was already on the disk, they felt rightly affronted and expressed their anger on forums and with direct appeals to 2K Games, the developers. But is there a reasonable explanation for 2K’s choice to block content like this? They retorted to criticism in a calm and low-key fashion, explaining in a short post that the decision had been made due to the way that post-release DLC is made. 2K argued that if the extra multiplayer levels were developed separately at a later date then gamers would be separated from their friends in online sessions, if one set had purchased the DLC and the other had not. This is apparently due to how players are grouped in multiplayer. They seem to suggest that if you have downloaded post-release DLC then you will only be grouped with other players that have it, but if the extra content is present on the disk then players can be grouped together when playing the basic multiplayer levels, even if some had the DLC and others don’t.

So this begs the question: why not simply make the maps available for all? The customer had already paid a lot of money for the game, so why don’t they deserve to have access to all of the content? It brings us to the sad conclusion that developers do see DLC primarily as a way of generating cash. Even with 2K’s explanation, which if true could hold for the Street Fighter and Resident Evil examples too, then they are making a conscious choice to charge more for content available at the game’s release. From a business stand point this is understandable, as selling DLC can net vast sums of money. Call of Duty: World at War generated $70 million from its map pack sales alone; but there is a clear line between what people consider to be value for money and what is seen as simply profit generating extras within the realms of DLC.

It is possible that DLC is produced on a separate budget from the main game, and that it is developed in tandem. If this is the case the 2K’s explanation may hold some water, as the development costs would need to be recovered. It also leads to the conclusion that if multiplayer DLC is so difficult to integrate then the future of DLC may be on-disk. That being the case then I would suggest that the DLC tag be dropped and the term “unlockable content” may be a suitable substitute. This doesn’t make the players feel any better about shelling out cash for more game, but it doesn’t wrongly lead them to believe that what they are paying for is being downloaded separately either.

Judging from what is posted in the forums and chatrooms of the gaming world, gamers don’t mind paying for DLC if they deem it value for money. There are many examples of excellent DLC which adds so much to the gaming experience, but the large sums of money created by DLC has made the industry greedy it is now rare to find a game release that doesn’t have some form of DLC attached. Ultimately gamers are the judges in this trial and the only way for their complaints to hold weight would be to boycott the purchase of DLC considered below par, or which is obvious profiteering.

That all said, Xbox LIVE is the biggest online DLC provider and a business model that remains extremely profitable, so as long as we keep downloading it appears that they’ll keep charging. Perhaps players should take a look at what it is they’re paying for though, before they part with their hard earned Microsoft points.

I wrote this article for Game Kudos, a new web publication. It can be viewed in its edited format here.

Red Dead Review

My review of Red Dead Redemption on the Xbox 360 has been published at Game Kudos.

I thoroughly recommend it to any fans of sandbox action adventure games and to anyone who enjoyed the GTA series. For me, the most surprising thing about the game was the very clever way in which the developers used the classic style of story telling, prevalent in the great western movies, to usher the game along. Playing Red Dead Redemption feels as close as possible to being in the toughest parts of the old west without the aid of Doc Emmett Brown.

In short, the game scores 8.2/10 and the single player game far outstrips the multiplayer. Utterly engaging and entertaining, a great buy that offers a bare-bones minimum of about 20 hours of superb gameplay.

The etiquette and idiocies of in-game chat

With the advent of multiplayer networks, such as Xbox LIVE, a new level of interactivity in gaming has been possible. In the past the only way to enjoy a console game in the company of your friends was to do so together, in the same room using split screen multiplayer games such as Golden Eye (007) on the N64. This had its own charm, of course, not least because it meant you would be spending time with your friends whilst engaging in some co-operative team based mayhem or simply blasting each other into the Stone Age.

With Xbox LIVE came in-game chat. Players could now have the same joshing banter with their friends while enjoying a game, despite being geographically separated. This doesn’t mean an end to groups of friends convening at one place to play, just an addition to the gaming experience.

However, with in-game chat came a problem: strangers. It is entirely possible to converse, in-game, with people you have never met, and who aren’t even on your “friends” list of gamer-tag contacts. As you can’t see the person you are talking to, and don’t know them, this could open up a Pandora’s box of multiplayer problems. Although a vast majority of gamers are at least polite and congenial during heated exchanges of gunfire or whilst sneaking up on an unsuspecting guard from two flanks, frustratingly, some of the people encountered in the game-o-sphere can be most politely described as idiots. There are those who are simply abusive; who curse vulgarly and launch violent verbal assaults upon anyone they deem to be lesser gamer, or who has simply done something, in-game, that they didn’t like.

These angry shouting morons are one of the main reasons that many people choose not to use their console’s voice chat feature and play muted. This doesn’t entirely remove from their gaming experience, but they aren’t then able to interact with other human players, for the banter, for the tactical exploitation of information that they wouldn’t otherwise have, or just to gloat (in a Gentlemanly/Lady-like way, of course) after a particularly spectacular kill/stunt/crash. There are also idiotic tendencies with regard less experienced gamers playing co-operative games. Very often the infamous words are heard “Help me, I’m over here!” without reference to where “over here” is. Unlike in real life a comrade’s panicked voice doesn’t come from any particular direction that you can follow, it’s transmitted directly to the ear. Where are you? I want to help, but you aren’t helping me to help you!

Finally, although there are many other examples, one of the most annoying traits of uncouth chat fiends is the unacceptable practice of male gamers being abusive to female gamers on the basis of gender. Some male gamers seem to think that they have an inherent right to gaming and if they get “humiliated” online by the superior skills of a “mere girl” then they retort with a torrent of inexcusable insults.

The idiocy plaguing multiplayer chat can be stemmed with the judicial application of etiquette. Be polite, don’t be overly aggressive or abusive and treat other gamers with the same respect with which you would wish to be treated. Above and beyond all of that, even if you are losing, remember: It’s only a game.

Id like to tip my figurative hat to a gentleman friend of mine with whom I have spent countless hours enjoying multiplayer gaming using in-game chat, and whose drunken suggestion led to this article. I salute you, sir.

Booted and Spurred

As you can see, The Gaming Gentleman is booted and spurred and ready for action on the frontier. I’m currently working my way through the treacherous terrain of the Old West, blasting my way through gangs of bandits and rescuing maidens, and hookers, in distress. It can only mean that I have finally gotten my hands on a copy of Red Dead Redemption on Xbox 360. For the princely sum of £49 I purchased the limited addition version available from GAME stores in the UK, which includes not just the game itself but exclusive downloadable content.

The added extras are Golden Guns, weapons that increase your fame when kills are made with them, War Horse, quite simply the fastest, strongest horse available to you in the game, and the Deadly Assassin outfit, which allows your Dead-Eye metre to refill more rapidly after kills.

I am enjoying progressing the single player game and will shortly be reviewing it here at the blog and at a website that I am working for as a writer. The multiplayer aspect of the game, however, has me a little concerned. Despite being hailed as a new, greater standard of multiplayer experience, one which will allow players to explore the vastness of the Old West and team up with fellow Xbox LIVE players to create posses and take on other gangs, thus far all I have encountered are players more concerned with shooting you as soon as you re-spawn, before you can get together with other players and generally making the multiplayer experience a frustrating and deeply un-entertaining one.

To add to the multiplayer woes, it appears to be full of glitches, like disappearing characters, and the sheer number of people trying to log on to the servers seems to be overloading them and causing problems when connecting to a game. That said, the single player game is impressive and addictive and I hope to have completed it soon. Perhaps in the meantime Rockstar San Diego may have addressed the glitches and server issues on multiplayer, and the obtrusive players may have gotten sick of ruining the fun for everyone else, or fallen off a cliff. I can but hope.

Nobody Does It Better (Splinter Cell: Conviction)

Ubisoft’s stalwart sneaky spy Sam Fisher returns in Splinter Cell: Conviction, the much-anticipated recent instalment in the series that is redefining a genre. The game begins with Sam having left Third Echelon after the death of his daughter in a hit and run incident. Sat in a Mediterranean café, Sam gets a phone call from an old colleague from his shadowy ex-workplace warning him of an imminent threat to his life. This kick-starts the story and Sam’s journey to find his daughter’s killer, which will drag the world’s greatest (non-British) spy back into the world of international espionage and pit him against his former employers.

Although still a 3^rd person stealth action thriller, the tone of the game has shifted from the constant shadow dwelling of its predecessors to a more open, upfront approach to the gameplay. It’s noticeable in Sam’s appearance too; rather than the skin-tight black-ops body suit he once sported his attire is more urban chic, in the Jason Bourne style. The action and story also seem to take influence from the Bourne series, with a gritty atmosphere and flashback storytelling projected onto walls as you progress the quieter sections of the single player mission. The cut-scene animation is breathtaking with very realistic rendering of characters; Sam himself has wrinkles, realistic eyes, individual strands of hair and a split-lip that doesn’t miraculously repair itself. Even his stubble grows as the game progresses giving it almost a “24” feel, and this is backed up by the clever, jerky camera movement during some of the more tense and sinister cut-scenes.

Sneaking is still a large part of the gameplay, but so is timely dashing from one place to another, tactically avoiding enemies or luring them into traps, separating them and taking them down one or two at a time. There are times when all out assault is required and the game utilises a mechanic whereby Sam can disappear into the shadows, leaving enemies shooting at his last known position whilst he flanks them. The “execute” function is also very useful, allowing players to mark and execute two enemies quickly after successfully taking down another by a hand-to-hand quiet kill. During interrogation scenes Sam can use the environment to punish those who won’t talk and convince them, with the use of things like sinks and pianos, to let him know what he wants to know. The weapon outfit is the standard expected; a mix of pistols (silenced or not), sub-machine guns, assault rifles shot guns and an array of devices including grenades, mines, EMP charges and sticky, exploding cameras to assist Sam’s progression.

For all of it’s impressive features, graphics and gameplay there are a few flaws. The camera angles, as with most 3^rd person games, often become obtrusive and cause difficulty for the player to see an area that would be clearly viewed through the character’s eyes. The sound track is largely in keeping with the game but sometimes descends into irritating techno-punk at inappropriate times, usually during intense action, probably intended to add to the atmosphere, but it seems only to annoy and detract. Strangely, Sam appears to have forgotten how to drag a body away from where it falls and to a convenient hiding place, rather remiss of a veteran black-ops agent. This means that players need to be extra careful when felling a foe in case their lifeless body should serve to alert other enemies to Sam’s presence.

However, despite the downsides, the game is overwhelmingly impressive, addictive and fun. The change of pace is refreshing and the lean toward a more beaten, gritty and weatherworn Sam Fisher is a welcome change from the previous formula. It’s cinematic, engaging and entertaining. Fans of the series will love it and new comers will find it easily accessible without the need to have played the previous games. A multiplayer option extends the life of the game beyond the completion of the single player campaign, the content of which will be covered in a future post.

War!!!…What is it good for?

Modern Warfare 2, Xbox 360

Activision have done it again. Their incredibly popular Call of Duty series has had another big release in the form of Modern Warfare 2; quite simply the best first person shooter I have ever played. With stunning and immersive graphics, cinema quality sound and all encompassing game-play, it is quite obvious why the game broke all sales records in entertainment media history in its first week of release.

Split into 3 sections, the game has a level of longevity that will make its rivals green with envy. The first is the story mode, which sees you taking on the roll of various characters as you are swept along the twisting rollercoaster of a plot. The story itself is a well-woven tale of international intrigue and political upheaval to rival even the most complex Tom Clancy novel. There are moments of sheer genius and twists that will leave you gasping. And all of this is simply to guide you from one level of gaming glory to another. The missions vary from all out assault against an enemy army to small two man special forces teams stealthily stalking mountainous bases in driving blizzards. From fighting drug gangs in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to raiding SAM sites on oilrigs off Russia, the game is truly global in scope and infuses gamers with a real sense of the dire importance of successfully achieving the aims of your missions. Not to reveal too much about the story before you play it, I would go as far as to say that it continues from where the last game left off and raises the bar in all areas of the gaming experience.

The second section is special ops; a series of challenges based around the main game, which become available to play once you have successfully completed the main story on any difficulty setting. Hours of extra game-play is to be had here, with achievements galore available for the competitive warrior-at-heart. Some of the missions require two players and can be done co-operatively online or split-screen with friends, a nice little touch to break up the army-of-one mentality that first person shooters often engender.

The final section is the backbone of the series and has kept the previous titles selling for years due to the online community supporting their continued use: multiplayer. Playing against another human in place of computer AI is often a much greater experience and this is definitely the case with Modern Warfare 2. As with Modern Warfare and World at War before it, MW2 has an online army of players and games can be found at any time of the day or night, with often more than 150,000 players online at any one time. Missions vary from old school free-for-all to team death match and ground war, each with their own unique playing styles, aims and objectives. The only thing limiting the life of this game is the life of the platform it’s played on. The earlier games in the series still have a massive online following.

Weapons and tactics have been upgraded with beautifully rendered modern arsenals and the addition of such abilities as throwing knives and even Unmanned Air Vehicles available to the players to unleash hell upon their opponents. In all aspects MW2 is a step up from the already excellent titles preceding it. However, there are some downsides. Those with slower broadband connections will find it difficult to locate a multiplayer game to join, despite seeing 50 plus available games on your screen the system’s tendency to try and match download speeds (no doubt for the good of the gaming experience) can often mean that those players find themselves watching in vain as their system fails time and time again to match them to a game server. My only other major issue with the game is corners. Being a first person shooter, when trying to see or shoot around a corner the player is forced to move their entire body our to get a shot off and will often receive a bullet for their trouble. Games such as Quantum of Solace managed to incorporate effective use of cover and move into its otherwise first person shooter mould and perhaps Activision can look at doing this in future titles to further enhance the realism of the game-play.

Overall Modern Warfare 2 is outstanding, and despite having completed the game I know that its multiplayer and special ops sections will continue to entertain for the foreseeable future. If you own an Xbox then buy this game.

Dungeons and Dragon Age

Bioware, the new masters of the RPG, have released their latest enthralling, engaging, story driven, action packed delve into the genre: Dragon Age: Origins. Like many RPGs, Dragon Age follows the route of the fantasy epic but with a focus on the background, or Origin, of the character that you play. Players are offered to start the game from one of six very different backgrounds, covering a variety of races, social backdrops, and genders. The player’s start position in the game very much effects how the game will unfold as you are ferried along the storyline, and your choices and moral decisions effect the game world and how characters interact with you. The initial part of the game is unique to each character type and, unless you choose to play the game through six times, players will experience only one Origin story before the game proper begins.

It doesn’t take long before the depth of the storyline is hinted at, with a rich back-story unfolding that includes suggestions of deep class and racial divides throughout the land of Ferelden. This complex background is the canvas upon which the main plot is painted. A dark threat to all living creatures, in the form of the demonic Darkspawn, is unleashing a Blight upon the land. Not long into the game we see humanity’s big stand against the monsters, and it goes horribly wrong. Unsurprisingly, despite the player character’s age and inexperience, we soon discover that you are the only person who can unite the divided lands and people to make a final heroic stand against the Arch-demon (a Dragon). Made a member of the Grey Wardens, an elite group of warriors sworn to destroy the Darkspawn, you and your band of warriors, mages, war dogs, elfs, dwarfs and Golems are sent off to finish what the armies of men could not.

The game is very long and engaging. Expect to lose tens of hours to the intricacies of the storyline, combat and character customisation. The combat itself seems to breach the gap between the needs of the hardcore RPG fan and those of the part-time gamer, with real time fighting that can be paused to choose and customise attacks and other actions from any of your player characters in order to achieve a victory. Moving away from the usual turn based combat that RPGs traditionally use, this form of combat interface allows gamers who are new to the genre to enjoy the game without loosing interest due to the intricacies of the character profile and the effects of attack, defence and chance upon the successful outcome of any action. It is all there for gamers who want it and can be ignored by those who don’t.

The game suffers slightly from long loading periods and on the Xbox 360 version some of the graphics and background textures can detract from an otherwise excellent gaming experience. On occasion some of the cut scenes suffer from glitches or missing segments of dialogue but these are very few and far between. Re-playing the section concerned often fixes the problem. Dragon Age: Origins is, overall, an RPG fan’s dream and Bioware’s efforts to make the genre more accessible to gamers not usually drawn to such titles is remarkable. With downloadable content available and more planned for the Christmas market the games longevity could well increase like other titles such as Mass Effect and Fallout 3.

Modern Warfare Boo

I am suffering terribly. I am an avid fan of the Call of Duty series and the latest release: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, was released this week to great acclaim worldwide. Breaking all records in its first week, the game has now generated more money in its opening week than any other form of entertainment media in history. No film, DVD, CD or game has made so much money, $310 million in its first 24 hrs.

The reason that I am suffering is that my dear fiancée discovered that I desperately wanted this game when it came out and ordered it for me…for Christmas. As lovely as this gesture is, the hardcore gamer in me is shaking like a crack addict going cold turkey. However, my overarching gentlemanly values stop me from running out and buying it, only to ruin the gift from my dearest. So I will have to wait until Christmas, but, on the bright side, I’ll have something to look forward to.

Achievement Unlocked: Points Whore

Microsoft’s ever-impressive gaming platform, the Xbox 360, has brought countless hours of joy and entertainment to gamers the world over. Xbox LIVE has connected those gamers over the Internet so that they can play together and interact online in a way never before possible. The games produced for the console are constantly improving and pushing back the barriers of gaming with more and more realistic physics engines, smoother, sharper and more impressive graphics, and game-play which is more akin to a Hollywood blockbuster than mindless, simple, button-smashing fun. Microsoft has created all of this but there is a downside. With good there is evil, with matter anti-matter, with Clapton the Spice Girls. The Xbox has released a plague upon the gaming world: Point Whoring.

Point whoring is the practice of needlessly accruing vast amounts of Achievement Points simply for the sake of having a higher gamer score. Every Xbox user has a Gamer Tag, which displays their chosen name, a picture and details on the gamer’s reputation, as well as a gamer score. Unlocking achievements within Xbox games increases these scores. The achievements vary in their worth and difficulty to obtain and points range from simple things, such as successfully completing a level, to the plain ridiculous, such as hitting a flag 4 times with a golf ball or kicking a chicken.

Many (if not most) gamers now use these whore points to compare themselves to others and see a high gamer score as a symbol of gaming virility. Some are forced to continue playing games, even once complete, to squeeze out every last achievement and bolster their gamer score in the process. Gamers can become obsessed with that familiar “Blop-ping” noise that indicates your most recent triumph. Certain games are purchased purely because it is easy to get points by playing them for a short period of time. These points have no value. They cannot be exchanged for anything

The "Achievement" symbol has come to be used in all manner of places

Despite what I have said here I have to admit, like an addict confronted with his problem, that I have been points whoring. I noticed recently I was doing ridiculous things in the gaming world to get another achievement point. From spending time at Liberty City’s golf range trying to hit a flag with a golf ball four times instead of completing one of the story missions, to replaying games through to choose different paths and receive different awards. I once mocked my friends for chasing the Xbox achievement dragon, but I now find myself counted amongst their number. That said, and shame aside, hunting for achievement points in games can often lead to some of the most fun and amusing game-play, for example the occasion when I received an achievement point for placing a grenade in someone’s pocket in Fallout 3, just to watch their trousers explode. I resolve to continue my gaming, but to limit my point whoring to occasions when I am bored so as that the practice does not become the main driving force of my gaming, but a tiny sideline treat every now-and-then.

The Ballad of Gay Tony: Making golfing fun (First impressions of GTA4’s new DLC)

On Friday night I paid the princely sum of 1600 Microsoft points on my Xbox LIVE account to download the latest episode from Rockstar’s GTA brand: The Ballad of Gay Tony (TBoGT). My broadband connection is not the fastest in the world, but is sufficient for my usual online gaming and downloading requirements. TBoGT, however, measures a whopping 1.8 gigabytes and my Feudal age connection simply couldn’t download it as quickly as I would have liked. I sulked a little and then resigned to leave the system switched on and downloading overnight.

On Saturday morning I woke up earlier than usual, without the aid of an alarm clock and bounded into the front room, hoping that TBoGT had completed its journey across the Internet to my Xbox’s hard drive. Success; with the download complete my latest gaming adventure could begin.

TBoGT is just as visually stunning as it’s parent game and from the opening sequence, weaved cleverly into a cut scene from GTA4, the old familiar GTA style is evident. It appears that the player character is, once again, smart and resourceful (let’s be honest, Rockstar aren’t going to insult their customers by making them take on the guise of a moron) and, once again, has a shady past which he seems keen on putting behind him. The game-play is familiar but with the promise of new tweaks such as the much-touted base jumping and parachuting as well as the ability to get behind the controls of an agile attack helicopter.

The story line, so far, has been filled with clever and witty dialog, a fair spattering of toilet humour and the obligatorily offensive content for which we all really buy these games. The addition of an underground cage-fighting aspect to this DLC gives the player another distraction to elongate the gaming experience and after every mission you get a percentage complete screen with targets which will allow you to compare your progress and skills against others around the world over Xbox LIVE (but only if you complete the mission without any replays).

So far TBoGT is living up to the hype. I am only a couple of hours in but I have already hit golf balls at a hapless goon tied to the front of a golf cart, engaged in a drive-by shooting and a car chase in the afore mentioned sporting vehicle, blown up a super-yacht with a prototype attack helicopter and killed a loan shark who had been harassing my dear-old mum. There are a few passing references and crossovers to GTA4 and The Lost and The Damned and this looks set to continue. More to follow…

I fought the law and the…law lost! (A return to Liberty City and the ridiculousness of scaremongering)

In eager anticipation of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 4 add-on game, the controversially named: The Ballad of Gay Tony, I decided to pay another visit to my old stomping ground in Liberty City. It has been a couple of months since I last played on GTA4, even on multiplayer, and I thought it was time to get myself re-acquainted with Nico Bellic, the game’s primary protagonist, and his friends, in order to aid a more seamless switch to the new episode on its release (due 29^th October).

In 2008 GTA 4 quickly became the must-have game on Xbox 360, receiving high scores by most reviewers and selling out in shops the world over. Extra content in the form of a whole new episode, The Lost and The Damned, was released in February 2009 and was very well received, expanding the gaming experience by utilising the expertly mapped and coded Liberty City and weaving a whole new storyline into the main plot by following a sideline character from the main game, Johnny Kebitz. The sheer size of the game would have stood alone against other titles on the Xbox, but was shorter than the main game. Now, with the upcoming release of The Ballad of Gay Tony, the two episodic game add-ons are to be released in the shops as well as on Xbox Live Marketplace, grouped together in a stand-alone pack name Episodes from Liberty City.

The Ballad of Gay Tony will see the player taking up the role of Luis Lopez, an assistant to nightclub owner Tony Prince, or "Gay Tony" to his friends. As always Rockstar have set out to shock and offend as well entrance and entertain. There will, undoubtedly, be complaints and protests over the game’s content and the usual calls from ridiculous groups of busybodies to have it banned “for the sake of the children” and this got me thinking. There are always those who claim violent people are influence by movies, TV and games to commit violent acts. Pious politicians and people quick to grab headlines are forever banging the drum of fear, claiming games such as GTA4 are rotting the moral fiber of our society and are a bad influence on children. Such talk almost always angers me. To begin with the game is rated 18 in the UK. This means (and I’m talking to you, parents) that children shouldn’t have access to it in the first place.

On the second count, that such violent games cause violence in the real world, I believe there to be little that can be said for or against that except to describe my own experiences as an example of the ridiculousness of the argument. I have played violent and non-violent games most of my life. In the gaming world I have murdered, bludgeoned, stabbed and shot people, aliens, monsters and mutations. I have stolen cars and run-drugs. I have also piloted a space ship, fought in World War Two and survived in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the distant future. I have never done, nor have I been tempted or in some cases able to do, any of the above. I have what most would consider a normal life: A job, a car, a home, a wife-to-be. I have been exposed to violent material all of my life and I am not a violent person.

I am also not a psychiatrist and am unable to argue about the mental state of someone who would cause violence to others in the real world and how images on TV and in games may influence their behavior. However, I would say this in closing; as I believe in freedom of speech and expression, I find any attempt to censor the public-in-general in order to prevent the violent or anti-social actions of individuals (that would probably occur by some other trigger anyway) predisposed to such activity in the first place to be misguided. So I am going back to Liberty City, to steal cars, deal drugs and shoot gangsters, and then later I will take my fiancé out for a pleasant afternoon at the waterfront, perhaps to a movie or for a sociable drink. For, you see, I can define the borders between, and keep separate the worlds of, reality and gaming/fiction. Have a safe day everyone.

Lost in the crowd (Left 4 Dead on Xbox 360)

The idea of the undead masses mindlessly swarming the globe and forcing ordinary people to take extraordinary measures just to survive is one which has been at the heart of popular culture, film, TV, books, comics and games since at least the 1960s-1970s. There are many theories as to why zombies are our “favourite” monsters and why so many writers, directors and game producers continue to return to the macabre theme. People like to be scared, so of course horror movies and books are always popular. We like to be frightened in the relative security of the cinema, knowing full-well that all is well outside. Zombies play on our fear of what we could become. They are a comment on the mindlessness of the crowd and the surrender of identity. They are slow, lumbering and relentless, driven by instinct and not rational thought or reason. Becoming them is one of our greatest fears.

George A Romano’s zombie films rank above their peers as the blueprint for the genre. His work is not, however, simply a splatter fest of gore and violence, although gore and violence have their place within the films. His Dawn Of The Dead (1978) set in a shopping mall in the US saw a band of survivors struggling to make a life while ever-more walking dead congregate outside of the mall patiently waiting for a route in. It was a clear comment on the mindlessness of consumerism. The theme of the survivor is ever-present. Groups of unlikely friends from different walks of life and backgrounds are almost always forced to work together to overcome the unbelievably poor odds of survival. They need to rely on each other. Against these adversaries the individual would never survive.

I have never seen the execution of the survival, reliance and group synergy themes in zombie genre games so closely aligned with the fears and considerations described above than in Valve’s Xbox masterpiece, Left 4 Dead. Unlike it’s predecessors such as Dead Rising, where the aim of the game was to have as much fun killing zombies as you could, Left 4 Dead is a breathtaking experience which pits you against swarms of the undead in varying locations with one overall aim: for you and your friends to survive and escape.

The game is a triumph. It is primarily aimed at being played online over Xbox LIVE. This is so that you can play alongside other humans in your attempt to escape from the terror of the rotting corpses stumbling around and trying to eat you. This is a particularly clever device that makes you rely other gamers, despite their strengths and flaws, who you probably don’t know, to help you as you help them to survive your ordeal. Just like in the movies, you are dependant on a rag tag group of strangers for your very survival. There is a single player option for those without internet access and the other player characters are taken over by the computer AI to assist you, but it’s not quite the same.

The game starts after the four main characters, Francis (biker type), Louis (office worker), Bill (crazy old veteran) and zoey (until-recently-college-girl type), are attacked by a group of zombies and a “Tank”, a mutated zombie that looks like, well, a tank. The cut scene follows the survivors in their escape to a rooftop, where your adventure begins. Taking on the role of one of the survivors you must now try and make your way through the over-run city to an area of safety held by the army. The onus is on teamwork. Spit up and you’ll die. Work for yourself only and you’ll die. You really do have to watch each other’s backs.

The graphics are outstanding and immerse you in a dark and sinister world. The control systems are intuitive and the gimmick of teamwork really does add a whole new dimension to the game play. You are going to get into an un-winnable situation and you are going to have to hope one of your fellow survivors sees you and comes to help out. The action is fast-paced and frantic and there is a jump around every corner. It is intelligent too; set off a car alarm, you’ll attract the dead; use loud weapons, you’ll attract the dead; try moving more carefully and quietly, you might get away with it. But it won’t always work. You will have to hold off the hoard, you will have to deal with tanks, smokers, hunters and witches, the slightly more scary and difficult foes. The whole time you are on edge and you always have that unreachable goal of safety to chase. This game is awesome and is easily one of the best games on the Xbox. There is more good news; as Left 4 Dead has been around for a while now the good people at Valve have had time to develop a sequel. Left 4 Dead 2 will be hitting the shelves in the near future.