Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops – Review (PSP)

I actually started this game back in 2008 – don’t worry it isn’t THAT long but I got a bit frustrated and switched to something else.

I’d been meaning to get back into for ages and following GTA Chinatown Wars I played some Motorstorm, which was great but I fancied some story based action.

And I came to the right place! Famed for it’s lengthy cut scenes, and often confusing plots, the Metal Gear series still gets played by so many people because they are brilliant games.

Portable Ops is no exception and they have done a great job of squeezing everything down for the handheld platform.

Set 6 years after Snake Eater (Metal Gear Solid 3) in 1970 it tells the story of Naked Snake, or Big Boss as he is now known. The plot is at times completely insane but basically focuses around the Cold War.

One clever new feature is the ability to capture enemy soldiers and recruit them yourself – so instead of Snake being on his own he can have an entire unit there.

You still play alone but if Snake ‘dies’ one of the other soldiers comes into action, albeit from the start of the level, with whatever damage Snake has done still intact.

The gameplay is your usual mix of stealth and panic – sorry, I mean intricate gunplay. – and if you’re a fan of the series you’ll be right at home.

The controls are awkward (well, this is PSP after all) but switching attack/shoot from square to R1 seemed to help matters.

Overall a sterling effort. Very enjoyable and although not a ‘pick up and play’ title, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops is a rewarding experience if you give it the time it deserves.

Rating: 9/10

The End Of An Era… But The Beginning Of Another.

As with so many things, gaming has changed a hell of a lot since the start of the decade.

It’s been a progressive ten years, seeing the arrival of the Playstation 2, Playstation 3 and PSP – as well as rival consoles from Nintendo and Microsoft that helped push Sony to improve.

Games are a much bigger part of life now – more mainstream than ever before. Most houses will have one of the consoles, if not more, as parents and children play (sometimes together ).

METAL GEAR SOLID: One of the original Playstation’s finest moments

There can be no doubt that Sony was the manufacturer of the decade – the continuing success of the PS2 secures them that accolade.

But in the current generation of consoles they sit in last place. XBox 360 started so well and then Nintendo arrived with the Wii to rape and pillage the ‘casual market.’

However as time has gone on the PS3 has made great strides to catch up with the XBox (I just can’t take the Wii seriously as a platform) and seems to finally be getting the games to back up it’s hardware.

GOD OF WAR: The series that showcased just how much was left in the PS2

As this decade comes to a close we’ve seen various companies go bust. From well established ones, like Acclaim or Midway, through to lesser known but good studios such as Pandemic no-one seemed safe from the threat of extinction.

I’ve had some big changes in gaming since 2000 – swinging from FIFA to PES back in 2001 and then back to FIFA again in 2009. Going from casual gamer to setting up my own blog and reviewing games.

The main difference for me now is in online gaming. With XBox Live on the 360 and then the PSN for PS3 gaming became even more social than before – with friends lists and even the inclusion of Twitter updates of your in game progress (Uncharted 2).

KILLZONE 2: The game that has defined online gaming for me this decade

I never thought I would ever play with a headset – but as online games have developed it’s often essential to be able to communicate to the people you’re playing with, not least to be able to dish out some friendly ribbing now and then

Games are so well developed now that people who were just casual gamers are finding themselves completing games and playing online.

It’s a great time to be a gamer and with a slew of great titles confirmed for 2010/2011 it looks like it’ll just keep getting better and better.

UNCHARTED 2: The complete gaming package

For the record here are my Top 10 favourites games of the decade:

1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)

2. Killzone 2 (PS3)

3. GTA: Vice City (PS2)

4. Pro Evolution Soccer 5 (PS2)

5. Metal Gear Solid (PSX)

6. God Of War II (PS2)

7. Dead Space (PS3)

8. Fallout 3 (PS3)

9. Resident Evil 4 (PS2)

10. GTA IV (PS3)

And because of “it’s great balance of Final Fantasy and Disney” my wife has submitted her game of the decade: Kingdom Hearts.

So that rounds out the decade!

See you all in 2010!

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – Review (PS3)

For the first time in a long while I have not been sucked into the hype for a big triple A game.

I just wasn’t excited about Modern Warfare at all – a mixture of not getting on with the first title and a general disappointment from the multiplayer footage I’d seen.

Upon firing up the single player mode I was struck by how good the graphics were and after a quick run through the training camp I was on my way.

The campaign mode sees you take on the role of several characters and while the story is full of big set pieces, the lack of depth in any of the characters you control leads to a sense of confusion at times.

This is also one of the games biggest weaknesses – without any sort of attachment to any of the characters it was difficult to care about what was going on as I worked my way through set piece after set piece.

The set pieces themselves were great when they worked but on the whole were another weakness in my opinion.

Take the snow mobile ride. Now I know someone who did it in one flowing attempt and thought it was amazing. It took me 3 or 4 goes to nail it – on one occasion failing right on the last jump as I wasn’t going quick enough – and was just a disappointing pain in the ass.

I just feel sections like that should be very hard to mess up, not knocking into one tree kills you (as realistic as that is).

Overall the single player is a bit of an enjoyable mess, with a story that is all over the place.

But no-one is going to be buying Modern Warfare 2 for the campaign mode… it’s all about the multiplayer.

And it’s a pretty good experience.

It’s been patched 4 times in the opening two weeks after release which I think may be a record – and it certainly struggles at times.

I’ve been kicked off because ‘the server is full’, disconnected from lobbies, been unable to party up, got stuck in doorways, had the cpu move for me when I was trying to stay still and had general connection issues.

Having said all that the actual gameplay is polished, and while it took a while to get used to the speed of moving (having been used to the slower Killzone 2), Modern Warfare 2 is fantastic fun online.

They have incorporated some features from other games and improved their own stuff from the previous installment.

The best thing for me are the Deathstreaks, where instead of being rewarded for killing opponents you get a bonus for dying. Very helpful if you’re having a bad round or just starting out.

Modern Warfare 2 is a vast multiplayer experience, with a ton of unlocks and perks to get over time. It’s a rich and deep set of abilities and weapons, which will keep you busy for a while to come.

As an overall package though Modern Warfare 2 is a lopsided beast.

The single player lacks any depth and would be no great loss to skip and the multiplayer, while fun and engaging, is extremely glitchy and suffers from connection problems.

Better than I thought then but not quite the second coming everyone was raving about.

Rating: 8/10

Sharing The Web Love…

As usual I partook in some Follow Friday action on Twitter today, where people suggest other folks who are interesting/worth following and I thought maybe it would be a nice idea to extend this into sharing a handful of great websites I regularly use for info, entertainment etc.

I’m not doing this every week so don’t panic but here are some sites you may or may not have heard of:

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/ – My main source of gaming goodness – best place I’ve found for footage of new games (and it’s not all just trailers).

http://www.curiousonion.com/ – Really good gaming site with plenty of reviews and features.

http://breagrant.com/blog/ – The blog of actress Brea Grant (Heroes/Friday Night Lights) who always come up trumps with music recommendations and plenty more besides.

http://beyondthedpad.wordpress.com/ – A more personal gaming blog, very well written – the reviews are always unbiased and honest.

http://www.ps3vault.com/ – Great source of info for PS3 matters, lots of reviews/features etc.

http://actionflickchick.com/superaction/ – Only recently discovered ActionFlickChick but her reviews are great and she has some really interesting features with stuntmen and the like.

http://zeonmusic.blogspot.com/ – A really good music blog, featuring loads of great tracks and some brilliant cover versions that are hard to find elsewhere.

http://www.aintitcool.com/ – A great source of film info, the original and still one of the best.

http://www.allmusic.com/ – If you need any music questions answered this is a great place to start. Sort of like a music wikipedia.

f*ckofffilm.com/ – *Warning* This site contains very strong language, that’s the point of it. Film reviews peppered with obscenities – my good friend Hollow Snake writes reviews for it.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ – Stuck on a game? Gamefaqs is the place to head for help. With cheats and walkthroughs galore.

 

So there you go, check ‘em out and let me know if you’ve got any recommendations as well.

NERDOH – Cool T-Shirts…

Just a very quick entry to flag up a great website I discovered last week.

Those of you who know me can testify that I love a good t-shirt

Well the guys over at Nerdoh (http://www.nerdoh.co.uk/) have some really great  film ones – check out the Alien tee I got:

Very very cool. Here’s a couple more:

They are £19 including delivery for the UK and mine arrived within 48 hours.

Give them a look if you’re after some new threads.

(And no I’m not being paid or sponsored for this before anyone asks )

“Lynch, do this, Lynch do that, Lynch stop murdering the hostages!”

Originally Posted: April 24, 2008

Kane And Lynch: Dead Men – Review

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men is an interesting beast. On the one hand it has moments of real unadultarated fun – there are levels that were among the most fun I’ve played on a PS3 (bank job anyone? How about a jail-break then?) – but on the other it had some pretty bad flaws, such as the camera angles and glitching.

The worst example of which saw Lynch’s body floating in the air and his head poking through road below. He was injured and needed medical attention but try as I might the computer wouldn’t recognize where was he was and he died. I had to restart the section through no fault of my own.

You play as Kane, busted out of a prison van on the way to jail to answer to The7 – a mysterious group who believe you left them to die while stashing the spoils of a heist away for yourself before your capture. They have assigned an unstable pyschopath called Lynch to follow your every move and make sure you do as they say. They want their goods back and expect you to get it for them.

The controls were standard fair (L2 to aim, R2 to shoot etc) and while the back up was handy in fire fights the squad mechanic was underwhelming, the other characters just seemed to go wherever they liked despite your directions. The use of adrenalin to bring you (or your team) back round from ‘fatal’ wounding was a nice touch – as was the fact you could OD on it and die anyway.

The weapons were good with your usual selection of handguns, shotguns, ak-47′s etc. and they each had a different feel. The ragdoll effects of the enemy soldiers was also a nice touch – as was the fact that every now and again after being shot they would drop to the floor writhing in pain, leaving you the option of finishing them off or leaving them to die.

The online play of Fragile Alliance mode proved to be a clever inclusion. You and your online partners perform a heist and whoever survives splits the money at the end of the level. However the twist is that you can all kill each other so you get a bigger share of the spoils. If you die during the level you respawn as a cop and if you then kill the person who killed you, you get the share of the spoils. This leads to some very tense allegiances where you’re not sure who you can trust. In one game I sprinted off towards the building we were hitting only to be shot in the back from the off – nice. But it certainly makes you think about things in a different way.

Despite a few moans here and there, this is a good, solid game. I’m willing to put up with minor gripes for the sake of an enjoyable gaming experience. This could’ve been a classic if it had been better implemented but as it stands it’s well worth a play through.

Rating: 7/10

What Treachery Is This?

Originally Posted: April 08, 2008 

The two God Of War games on PS2 were visually stunning and evenly paced action adventures that set a high standard of gaming and kick started the PS2 as it approached the end of it’s lifespan.

The idea of a handheld prequel had left me feeling slightly uneasy. It could be another fantastic experience with Kratos but there was a nagging fear that it might turn out to be rubbish, like so many prequels.

I can allay those fears right now with a bold claim – God Of War: Chains Of Olympus is the best game I have played on PSP. I’m not saying it’s the most in-depth or has any new radical features, just that it was a lot of fun to play and has been my favourite gaming experience on the PSP so far.

Kratos, the lead character (and God Of War), has done bad things to many people – on the battlefield and just in general. He offers to serve the Gods of Olympus (Zeus/Hades etc) and in return they will erase his pain at the memories of what he has done.

The PSP game starts out in familiar territory – being sent by the Gods to sort out a mess and rescue a city. This involves lots of the hacking and slashing that have become the games trademark. As the game progresses Kratos proceeds through several places trying to work out who has caused all the problems going on, with several great boss battles and lots of the ‘match the button press’ kills that make the game so enjoyable.

The controls are simple and transfer directly from the PS2 with the face buttons as jump, interact, light attack and heavy attack – and then used again in conjunction with the L and R buttons for combos and magic respectively.

The game is stunning graphically – easily the most impressive on PSP and the developers have pushed the envelope on it. However this brings me on to the only downside of the game – it’s short. Very short. I finished this (albeit on Easy mode) in around 4 hours. Possibly this is due to the squeeze for the graphics but a few more hours would’ve been great.

Overall this is an essential purchase for any PSP owner and while it is on the short side I would rather play a great 4 hour game than a slightly disappointing, drawn out 8 hour one!

SCORE: 9/10

FIRE UP THE QUATTRO!

Originally Posted: February 11, 2008

Well Ashes To Ashes, the follow up to the superb ‘Life On Mars’, started last week and what a great opening episode.

Gene Hunt was back to his best, shouting abuse all round and the like: “Fire up the Quattro” absolute genius.

Hopefully they’ll be able to maintain it the way they did with Life On Mars, Keeley Hawes was pretty good – you just have to remember that Alex Drake isn’t the same character as Sam Tyler!

Finally getting close to the end of Rainbow Six Vegas, tracked the terrorists down to the Hoover Dam – which I feel is about to end in some quality gun-play!

Should finish it in time to pick up the second game, which is on Pre-Order for next month

Oh and Harry Hill’s TV Burp is the funniest thing on the box at the moment – no question!

2008: Stuff To Look Forward To!

Originally Posted: January 02, 2008

Well it looks like 2008 is going to be a great year for entertainment! There are loads of films and games coming out so I thought I’d give you all a heads up on what I’m looking forward to

Film-wise my biggest expectation comes from Be Kind Rewind, in which two video store workers (Mos Def and Jack Black) accidentally wipe all the videos in the shop and go about re-creating them on the blank VHS’. The trailer is great and I think this will be a very funny film.

Sticking with comedy Semi Pro with Will Ferrell also looks excellent – kind of like an X-Rated version of Dodgeball. Ferrell usually comes up trumps so I’m keeping a keen eye on this one.

Honourable mentions in the popcorn blockbuster stakes must go to Iron Man, which I thought would be terrible but the trailer has convinced me otherwise, and the new Indiana Jones (Indy And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull). Even the title gets the Indy theme music flowing in my mind!

Cloverfield looks intriguing – seemingly a ‘Godzilla-style’ monster attack movie. The trailer is great and raises interest so I’m hoping it won’t be a giant let down!

Also the movie of the book ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife,’ which I think could be brilliant. The book was unexpected for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hopefully the big screen adaptation will work.

Moving on to Games and the big one for me this year has to be Ghostbusters.

I know everyone will say GTA IV and I agree to some degree but when I found out the Ghostbusters game was confirmed and that they had the whole original cast I almost wet myself with joy. It seems to be in safe hands with Sierra as well – finally I can be a Ghostbuster!

Obviously GTA IV as I mentioned above, I think the delay will do it good – we all saw what happened when PES was rushed out.

Then of course there is Metal Gear Solid 4, which should be fantastic – all those amazingly long cut scenes in HD, only kidding. The AI should be better with the extra power of the PS3 so hopefully it will throw up some interesting situations.

Little Big Planet looks like brilliant fun, as does Mercenaries 2 – which seems to involve blowing lots of buildings up with rocket launchers… sweet.

Having played the demo of The Club I feel a lot more confident. I didn’t think the trailer looked that good to be honest but when you’re actually there with your combo meter draining away desperately looking for someone else to shoot it was very much fun. And also it’ll be a relief to be someone other than the Russian geezer.

Another huge one, although it’s not yet been confirmed for 2008, is Resident Evil 5. Already running into problems because of it’s African setting (apparently it’s not cool to kill the zombies/voodoo dudes because they are black? But it was fine in the last game for them to be Spaniards? Jeez, if it’s set in Africa and the zombies are black I’ll shoot them, it’s not because they are black we’re shooting them!! ) this should be an amazing game. After the genius of Resi Evil 4 Konami wouldn’t dare drop the ball on this one.

On the TV we have the new series of Primeval to look forward to (yes the special effects are pony and Hannah from S Club is always in her pants but apart from that it’s cool) and I will be continuing my King Of Queens marathon (midway through season 6 as we speak!).

My main two picks are the second series of Heroes – which was without doubt the best thing on TV last year.

And also the third series of My Name Is Earl… talk about leaving it on a (slightly depressing) cliffhanger. As soon as it finished I wanted to know what happened next! And it will be interesting to see Charmed’s Alyssa Milano starring alongside Jason Lee as well.

So there you have it, a few picks for 2008 for you.

Oh and Happy New Year!

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune… QUALITY!

Originally Posted:  November 28, 2007 

Was stunned to discover I’d completely overlooked the Playstation Store a few days ago when a friend tipped me off about a demo of the highly anticipated Uncharted: Drakes Fortune.

I knew there was a Playstation Store but for some reason it never occurred to me that there might be free stuff on it!

*WARNING* This demo takes (literally) hours to load so may be worth leaving your PS3 on overnight to download it.

So anyway the game loads up and you get a great looking cut scene of you and your partner flying a small plane which gets shot down over the jungle. You get seperated and the level begins.

Pretty much just like that – you are on your own in the middle of a beautiful jungle. Well, we all know looks aren’t everything but my word this game looks amazing. I run chest high through a stream, brilliant water effects but what got me was that his clothes were wet after he got out for the next few minutes! It looked fantastically real.

Enough about the looks, I wouldn’t be praising this game at all if the gameplay was shoddy, which I’m pleased to say it wasn’t.

There were a couple of bits involving climbing up to higher sections to progress. The climbing mechanic is great and the character animation looks convincing. It really felt as if the guy was jumping from ledge to ledge. Not one single ‘comedy’ event happened during that bit which was nice. Usually the character stumbles blindly off the edge of.a ledge you can’t see because of a dodgy camera angle etc.

As you make your way through the jungle you encounter bad guys who are taken out with R1, using L1 to aim. All sounds complex but it soon becomes natural.

One thing I did initially have a few problems with was the cover system. Circle pushes you back to back with whatever object/wall is in front of you. Then you have to hold aim and fire as usual. Took me a few tries of painfully trying to keep circle held as well to realise you only need to PRESS circle to do this not hold it!!

The baddies go down theatrically in movie style – but just a quick point for the developers… One head shot is usually enough to kill someone.

The AI seems to be fairly good – although there were a few ‘Kamakazi’ bad guys who left their cover to charge straight to where I was.

The close quarters combat was ace. Using combinations of triangle, square and circle (seemingly in whatever order you want) you can unleashed a volley of punches, elbows, kicks etc that can disarm or knock out your opponent! Makes Heavenly Swords ‘press square three times for a combo’ look a bit cack.

I didn’t actually finish the demo (just joined a PES league and needed some practice!) so I will report back if I uncover any more features or points of interest.

Overall very impressed – especially as this is just a demo. This is one game I will definitely be picking up when it comes out.

As games become more developed and move further into the realms of HD our enjoyment of games is going to increase greatly – we will find ourselves even more attached to the characters and we will start to (hopefully) see more game directors come to the fore like their film counterparts. At the moment the only one that springs to mind is the ever genius Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear Solid fame.

As that starts to happen, hold on to your hats folks – ’cause we’re in for one hell of a ride!