GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games: 100 – 91

So here we go.

The first batch of games in the GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games list!

A quick recap on how I decided who came where:

I decided, as so many games mean so many different things to me, I should come up with a fair way to judge them. This is what I came up with:

Time Spent Playing

Storyline

Difficulty

Fun

Ground Breaking?

A few provisos before we hit the first ten games…

Firstly this is my list of my Top 100 games. I certainly don’t expect you guys to agree with it (though hopefully you’ll agree with some of the choices 😆 ) and would welcome any comments.

Secondly, I’m not planning on putting the scores or totals up, just listing the games in the order they came out in.

Lastly, I never owned a Nintendo or Microsoft console so my experiences on these games were limited to friend’s houses etc – bite me 🙂

Let’s get started!

 

100. GHOSTBUSTERS (ZX Spectrum)

 

I spent so many hours playing this as a kid and never even made it past the first bit but I was crazy for anything Ghostbusters so I loved it as much as any game I had at the time. You used to have work your way around the city busting ghosts. Inbetween busts you got to drive the Ecto 1 and buy loads of cool gadgets that didn’t really do much. Looking back its pretty appalling 😆 but I have very happy memories of it. Damn that Marshmallow Man coming to stomp all over the town so quickly!

 

99. SPLATTERHOUSE 2 (Sega Mega Drive)

 

Rick was hard as nails. After seeing his girlfriend Jennifer killed at the end of the original Splatterhouse does he sit around and mope, crying like a baby? No siree, he gets himself the Hell Mask and goes to rescue her from the Land Of The Dead. 😎 My friends and I didn’t really get that far into Splatterhouse 2 as it was hardcore. We never got bored though, not with the ability to ‘splat’ undead enemies onto the wall in the background with a metal pipe. 🙂 Nightmarish? Yes. Fun? Hell Yeah!!!

 

98. GHOULS N GHOSTS (Sega Master System)

 

If you wanna talk near impossible games let me introduce you to Ghouls N Ghosts. Damn this game was hard. I dread to think how many hours I put into this just to be able to get to the second or third level – sheesh. You control Arthur the Knight, who is trying to save his true love and help restore the souls to the people the evil God Loki has taken them from. But let’s be honest we all laughed the first time he got hit, lost his armour and was just in his heart covered boxer shorts 😆 Then we wept as his died from the next hit. 😦 Three hits and you’re dead – as Pulp once sang: This Is Hardcore.

 

97. LETHAL ENFORCERS (Sega Mega Drive)

Ah Lethal Enforcers, such fun 🙂 Having experienced it in the arcades it didn’t take much for me to invest in a copy for the Mega Drive. From then on it was a downward slope as me, my Dad and my brother desperately tried to shoot out some Chinamen in a Chinese Laundry or take out some bad guys in a bank robbery. To reload you had to aim the gun away from the screen and we soon perfected what can only be described as the campest reloading ever – a quick flick of the wrist away to reload and back firing in one fluid motion. Good wholesome shooting family fun – just don’t shoot the civilians!!

 

96. GOLDEN AXE (Sega Master System)

Golden Axe was brilliant – first up the choice of characters: Barbarian, Amazon or Dwarf (Dwarf ftw :cool:). You got swords/axes, magic – which was sweet and even the ability to ride monsters, spewing fire/ice at baddies. This is an absolute classic. In fact at a theme park once my parents had to announce over the tannoy for me to come to the main gate. The park was closing but I’d gone back to the arcade for one last game. 😳 I had it for the Master System and while the graphics weren’t as good as the arcade the gameplay was just as good.

 

95. HARD DRIVIN’ (Sega Mega Drive)

I wasted many an hour on Hard Drivin’ pretending I was really driving and creating the most awesome crash replays by screaming up the loop the loop and veering off the side on the way up. Basically you had a choice of the stunt course or the speed course. Mainly most people went stunt – and why not, the speed course was rubbish anyway 😆 Used to get endless amusement from the fact that if you hit the cow it mooed. I used to love Hard Drivin’ but can admit it doesn’t really hold up against some of the driving games that have followed it. 🙂

 

94. WWF WRESTLEFEST ROYAL RUMBLE (Arcade)

My brother and I must’ve pumped hundreds of quid into this over the years. WWF was ‘real’ wrestling and Hulk Hogan ruled. 😎 This was as close as we got to the real thing. We’d be like ‘oh my God look at the graphics – it’s so realistic.’ 😆 The good thing about this was the Royal Rumble mode. Yeah tag team was all well and good but there’s nothing quite like ‘every man for himself’ to get the fingers and thumbs pumping. Happy times and the recent WWE Legends Of Wrestlemania was a great example of how wrestling games used to be – fun.

 

93. CHASE HQ (Sega Master System)

Chase HQ made you feel like the coolest cop EVER. You had a Porsche. You had nitro boosts. When you saw your suspect you put a red police light on the top of your car. And when you finally caught up with them you had to ram them off the road Gene Hunt style. Would love to see this remade and updated at some stage. The gameplay was great, if a little short but the games combination of different styles (tactical boosting / agressive ramming) broke things up and it was just as entertaining to watch as it was play.

 

92. SINGSTAR (Playstation 3) 

The only singing game you’ll ever need and I’m not just saying that because I’ve worked on every edition 😆 Singstar was a truly ground breaking title in the genre. No one had used original audio for a singing game before and to feature the video in the background as well was a touch of genius. I have had many a great night when the Singstar has come out to play 🙂

 

91. RESISTANCE 2 (Playstation 3)

Resistance 2 follows on from the first game – beginning minutes after Resistance: Fall Of Man concludes. The second game was bigger and better than the first but despite it’s increase in scale it was less fun in places and didn’t have as many new inventive weapons. Graphically it was a step up and some of the boss battles were epic – a very solid shooter and one that continues to expand the Resistance universe.

 

So there’s the first part of the countdown – more to follow soon and I’ll add links within each one as we go along to make it easier to find for everybody!

Terminator Salvation: Review (PS3)

Well, I was warned by several poor reviews, not least by my good friends at Beyond The D-Pad, but I ended up giving Terminator Salvation a spin for myself.

Could it really be a bad as everyone said?

In a word, yes.

It’s pretty poor and while there is technically nothing wrong with the game itself, the way it’s been designed leads me to believe it was rushed out to co-incide with the film.

Ok let’s start at the beginning. The game opens with minimal fuss and a few enemies to show you the controls etc. At this stage the cynic in me was beaten back a little as I quite enjoyed taking down the enemies.

Graphically the game isn’t too bad – during gameplay at least. Cut scenes aren’t great, almost all the characters have those creepy ‘dead eyes’ that move but add no realism whatsoever.

After a quick 5 minute blast the first level came to a close – ‘bling’ – trophy. Only, hang on a minute… that looks like, it can’t be… yes folks it was a GOLD trophy 😡 For completing the tutorial. 😦 Level completions are bronze trophies, with a silver or gold maybe for finishing the game. We all know that – it’s a logical state of affairs.

This just makes a mockery of the whole trophy system. I finished this game (albeit on easy, I wasn’t willing to put too much time into something every single review had slated) in 3 and 1/2 hours – I got 9 gold trophies for my ‘trouble.’ That’s roughly 2.57 gold trophies an hour! There aren’t even any skill based trophies, just the level completions and a medium and hard completion gold trophy.

To be fair they’d have had trouble including skill based trophies anyway. Terminator Salvation makes it extremely difficult to hit any target accurately as the aiming system has to be dead centre to hit anything. You’re a little to the left? Tough no hit. This is incredibly unfair and annoying with the flying drones who are constantly moving.

Yes there’s a buzz when you take down your first Terminator but it really doesn’t last long as you’re then bombarded with the spider bots.

It doesn’t help that the spider bots can only be killed from behind. A shot to front will shut them down for 3 or 4 seconds so someone else can take advantage and shoot the back. Only it has to be you because your AI buddies don’t have the skill or intelligence to do it. 😡

The levels fly by and are broken up by the on-rails driving sections (car/train etc) where you use an artillary gun to take down chasing enemies.

This was done brilliantly in Resident Evil 5 but here, well it was certainly fun at times but there was just no danger – fair enough it was on easy but I’d expect if I didn’t shoot them, even on the easiest setting, that they would cause some damage to the vehicle/me.

One thing that was quite well implemented was the cover system, which has been refined since these guys made Wanted: Weapons Of Fate. You attach to cover with X then at the edge of cover you use the analogue stick to choose another piece of cover, press X and John Connor automatically runs and slides into cover there. It’s a good system and offers you a little more protection than just running between cover yourself.

I think the real problem with Terminator is the fact it’s so ridiculously repetitive. There are, I think, only 3 or 4 enemy types in the whole game (Drones, Spider Bots, Terminators and flying harvester ships). There aren’t any ‘boss battles’ per se. You get more of the above thrown at you.

I mean, come on, the last level – it’s all Terminators yeah but where was the last boss? Where was the secret mega Terminator they’d been creating? I’m not going to say anymore so that peeps who do want to play through (hello Trophyitis sufferers 😆 ) can do without me ruining the end.

I think we need to move away from film tie-ins now for games. Let’s get the licence and make something original. Or based on another facet on the film’s universe. I know it’s not out yet so could be rubbish but look at Batman Arkham Asylum. That looks brilliant and isn’t tied to a film.

This was a wasted opportunity in my opinion. The Terminator universe deserves a great game made for it. Hell, if you’re gonna tie it in why not just do a game based on the first few films for the new generation of consoles.

It certainly couldn’t be much worse than Terminator Salvation. This is a game where you will have the odd moment of fun in amongst repetitive mindless gunfights. Sadly I think there were more gold trophies than moments of fun.

I can stomach a bad/broken game that has some great ideas (Hi Alone In The Dark 🙂 ), at least they are trying something new. But the most damning thing about this game is that it isn’t a bad game as such, it’s just boring.

And that for me is the worse crime a game can ever commit.

Rating: 3/10

Infamous – Review (PS3)

As I mentioned previously in my Infamous Demo Impressions blog, this is a game that has blown hot and cold for me as far as interest is concerned.

Initally I liked the look of Prototype better and as they were similar games I thought I’d pick that one up rather than Infamous.

Then as more footage was released Infamous started to take shape and eventually I changed my mind and invested in a trip to Empire City.

In Infamous you control Cole McGrath, a courier who just happens to be carrying a package containing an electronic bomb when it goes off, devasting the city. Somehow Cole survives and, after coming out of a coma, realises the explosion has given him electrical superpowers.

From there on out the city is your oyster and there is plenty to do as you try to track down the people behind all this.

This is a game similar in scope to a Grand Theft Auto title – you have story based missions but there are also lots of side missions scattered across the islands, some good, some neutral and some evil.

Because of Cole’s powers you are given the opportunity to choose at certain moments whether to perform a ‘good’ or ‘evil’ act. For example after defending a crate of food from the bad guys do you share out the food with the general public? (Good) or take it away and keep it for you and your friends? (evil)

The same with the side missions – but once you choose the flip side missions become locked in that area. So if there are two good and two evil side missions once you do a good side mission the evil ones are locked and unplayable (until you play through again obviously.)

I loved the Karma Moments, choosing between good and evil added a nice touch and while it doesn’t effect the overall plot it does mean the story plays out in a slightly different way.

My only complaint was that often they were a bit heavy handed and obvious. I.e ‘Save this person or let them die.’ I much preferred the more subtle ones where a choice had an unexpected outcome. Also in the next game (presuming there is one) I’d like to see them improve this by not highlighting which is the good or evil action and possibly only giving you, say, five seconds to decide.

The other main difference in good and evil are the powers Cole has. Effectively he has the same powers but with different bonuses as you level them up. So say Shockwave (my personal favourite power :cool:) – when you’re good blasting the enemy through the air with a shockwave sees them slow down so you can target them in mid air. Whereas evil Cole’s Shockwave might see the enemy explode as they hit the floor, taking out all around them.

It makes for a pretty strong reason to replay the game. You have the freedom of the city to run around and complete side missions, battle enemies etc once the main story is finished but it’ll be no surprise to learn that the final ‘Karma Moment’ choice effectively locks you as good or evil. So you’ll need to start a new story to play as fully good or evil, depending on your choice.

And why wouldn’t you want to play through again? Well, let me run through what didn’t work in the game.

I’m not a stickler for graphics, I’ve been playing games too long to consider them more important than gameplay and that’s fortunate because the in-game cut scenes in Infamous are horrible. I’m talking PS2 style, random mouth movements, jerky animation etc They’ve somehow made them look WORSE than the actual game itself! During gameplay the graphics are great, with no hint of slowdown even when the screen is full of enemies and pedestrians.

There were a few points when pedestrians got caught in a set animation – making it look like they were having a fit/moonwalking etc but nothing major.

I’ve heard compaints about the comic style cut scenes between levels – no complaint here, I thought they were really good.

One thing I was a bit disappointed with was the lack of audio. Now they didn’t have to go down the route of GTA with radio or an MP3 player for Cole but more score or whatever throughout would’ve been cool.

Other than that it was all good. The occasional problem with Cole not climbing what I wanted him to didn’t hinder too much and it’s a small problem when you look at the scale of what Sucker Punch has achieved with the game.

Infamous is a great game, you really feel that Empire City is alive – the civilians reactions to you depending on your karma is a great touch and is one of the main reasons I’ll probably play through the game again to be evil once the game release schedule quietens down in the summer.

I liked the storyline and the direction they took the game, if you can look past a few of the superficial issues then Infamous offers something slightly different to your usual third person action/adventure and it’s a game that is definitely worth checking out.

Rating 8/10  9/10  * Infamous has been upgraded – find out why HERE *

GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games – Preview

When I considered compiling my Top 100 games I was struck by an odd thought – could I really think of 100 games good enough to make a decent Top 100 list?

Well the answer was a resounding yes. I went through each generation of my gaming ‘career’ writing down not only the good but also the bad so everything could be judged on merit.

I decided, as so many games mean so many different things to me, I should come up with a fair way to judge them. This is what I came up with:

Time Spent Playing

Storyline

Difficulty

Fun

Ground Breaking?

So I went about judging the shortlist of games (which clocked in at just over 200 :eek:) scoring them for each section.

I rated each game individually and then collated the total scores, and therefore the positions, afterwards so as not to influence my scoring.

A few provisos before I start my preamble…

Firstly this is my list of my Top 100 games. I certainly don’t expect you guys to agree with it (though hopefully you’ll agree with some of the choices :lol:) and would welcome any comments.

Secondly, I’m not planning on putting the scores or totals up, just listing the games in the order they came out in.

Lastly, I never owned a Nintendo or Microsoft console so my experiences on these games were limited to friend’s houses etc – bite me 🙂

So to conclude this preview a few honourable mentions from the 100 great games that DIDN’T make the Top 100.

SUPER OFF ROAD (Sega Megadrive)

I remember getting this for my 14th Birthday and being allowed to stay up past midnight to play it for a bit before going to bed. Absolute manic driving game with a slightly side on/top down view. The use of nitros made this fun and I spent plenty of time racing my brother on this.

CALIFORNIA GAMES (Sega Master System)

 

Oh yes! One of the really old skool games, California Games saw you competing in various disciplines including BMX, Footbag and Surfing (pic above). This was great fun and with so many different ‘sports’ it kept us entertained for some time.

WORLD SOCCER (Sega Master System)

Those were the days. Ronaldo to Madrid for £80m? Screw those over-priced primadonnas. This was REAL football. Check out the Grobelaar-esque dodgy keeping for that first goal though 😆

NHL 95 (Sega Mega Drive)

After experiencing this at a friend’s house I had to have a copy. Awesome, awesome hockey and up until 2K’s recent hockey game NHL 2K8 I didn’t think it could be bettered but 2K ran it close.

CALL OF DUTY 4 (PS3)

OK confession time – I didn’t ‘get’ COD4 😮 In my defence I wasn’t much of an online gamer in those days so didn’t experience that side of it and I played the first level of the campaign mode at a friends. I could kind of appreciate the cinematic quality of it but really I just got lost and without direction spent ages wandering round the ship.  Graphically it was awesome and they had created a good sense of aymosphere but those opening minutes with the game jarred me and I never fully took to it.

DOOM (PC)

We never had a PC at home when I was growing up so I only got snatches of this game at my mates houses. Frantic, fast and great fun but even in those days I had trouble controlling the game with a keyboard 😦

ZERO TOLERANCE (Sega Mega Drive)

One of my favourite first person shooters – for the time I thought the graphics were amazing. Revisiting it recently they weren’t but this was an enjoyable romp at the time and I loved the fact you could choose different character with different abilities.

ANT ATTACK (ZX Spectrum)

Again an old favourite that I never got very far on but played countless times. This was basic boy saves girl stuff but the ants! Oh man they were BIG!

SECRET COMMANDO (Sega Master System)

Me and my brother must’ve spent days playing this game – the co-op mode was excellent and it was really challenging. We really got some mileage out of this title and the game really ramped it up with tanks etc (see video). Great fun!

CHUCKIE EGG (ZX Spectrum)

Chuckie Egg (picture at top of the article) still stands up today as a great time killer. It’s just as addictive as it was back in the day. You could blast through the first few levels once you knew the chicken’s patterns but once you were 4 or 5 levels in this got TOUGH even if you knew what you were doing. Brilliant gameplay – just the right side of frustrating.

So over the next few months I’ll be bringing you my Top 100 games. I’m cutting it off now (end of June 2009) so any new games will have to wait until next year’s edition 😆

Looking forward to sharing it with you all!

LINKS TO FURTHER POSTS:

GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games: 100 – 91

GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games: 90 – 81

GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games: 80 – 71

GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games: 70 – 61

GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games: 60 – 51

GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games: 50 – 41

GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games: 40 – 31

GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games: 30 – 21

GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games: 20 – 11

GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games: 10 – 6

GregHorrorShow’s Top 100 Games: The Top 5!

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Seas – Jules Verne (Book Review)

Most of the books I read are by comtemporary writers so after finishing ‘The Book Thief’ I decided to give one of the ‘classics’ a whirl.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Seas tells the story of Dr. Aronnax, his Conseil and a harpoonist called Ned Land.

Being an expert on sea life Dr. Aronnax is called in to help the government after several ships suffer damage at the hands of some type of marine creature.

Following an encounter with the beast that sees them seperated from their ship, the three are eventually picked up by Captain Nemo and taken prisoner aboard his submarine.

That is where the real journey begins.

This book was published in 1870 and this is a translation from French, so obviously the style of writing seemed a little clunky at times.

My main problem with the book was that I don’t really have an interest in fish or marine life, I was reading it for the story.

And the problem was, at times, the book bombards you with details of the fish they found and saw on their journey. Even going into so much detail as to inform the reader about what family each of them belong to in the sea world. 😮

Without wanting to sound patronising, I’m sure this was brilliant in the 1800’s but if I wanted that level of detail I’d pick up a text book about fish or watch Blue Planet and the like.

The story itself is fairly slow and takes a long time to build towards the last quarter, which suddenly sparks into life.

I found myself struggling to motivate myself to read the first 3/4’s of the book as it was so slow but then couldn’t put it down for the last 100 pages or so.

Perhaps this was intentional on Verne’s part – the first part of the book deals with the groups incarcaration and adjustment to the slow lifestyle.

Or maybe not, either way it made for a frustrating read.

The characters were brought to life though, with only the impatient Ned Land occasionally jarring with some of his dialogue.

Captain Nemo was as mysterious as expected but had a human side I never anticipated, which was a nice surprise.

I also felt the ending was a bit of a cop out to be honest. I won’t spoil it for you by going into detail but it certainly smacked of a small child telling a massively elaborate story and then concluding by saying ‘and then it was the end.’

I would’ve liked a little more closure from the conclusion but overall this wasn’t too bad a read, as long as you’re happy biding your time waiting for some action and are happy skim reading several pages of fish descriptions between story passages.

Rating: 6/10

Feeling Sad? Upset? How About A Little DLC?

It took a long time but a couple of months ago I took the plunge and set up a wallet on the PSN (Playstation Network) Store.

Effectively I’d only been using the store to download free demos as I’d had no interest in DLC (Downloadable Content) but that was all about to change.

For a start my wife had played Flower and really enjoyed it – possibly more so because it didn’t require 20+ hours to get through it. So I decided to add some funds to the online wallet in case any more PSN games caught her eye.

And secondly, Killzone 2.

Two multi-player map packs have been released with last week’s ‘Flash and Thunder’ pack following on from the ‘Steel and Titanium’ maps in April.

These map packs cost £4.79 each and you get two new levels in each.

I’ve found the levels to be really enjoyable with a few new ideas implemented in each.

Wasteland Bullet in the first pack introduced external hazards that could kill the player on the moving train, like making sure you time your jumps between trains so scenery rushing by doesn’t kill you 😆

This has been taken to the next level on Southern Hills in the latest pack which feature a nuclear blast 😮 It’s cool though if you’re inside it won’t kill you 🙂

The games missions remain the same it’s just within a new setting.

My issue here isn’t with the quality of the product – no complaints on that front but are these packs really worth £4.79 when the game itself cost around £40 (and probably less now)?

Possibly but I still think a more attractive price point could’ve been found – maybe £2.99 each? Or maybe if you bought the first pack get the second one half price?

To put this into context EA (I know, I know they are made of money :lol:) have continued to put out DLC to support Burnout Paradise, including a pack that added bikes to the game as well as cars… FOR FREE!

Although it must’ve cost EA a lot of money to offer that for free it garnered a lot of respect from gamers and proved they are interested in looking after their consumers.

Take for example Home – Sony’s online social space. Now it was fun to set up my avatar, have a look around and see it in action but am I really gonna pay to have a certain t-shirt or piece of furniture in my virtual apartment?

Not at £1.79 for a virtual t-shirt. 😮

Now I might not be the market for this type of thing but seriously where is the value in that? I could pretty much buy two tracks on iTunes for that!

Home has amazing potential but to even tempt people like me to buy stuff it needs to be priced at or around the iTunes model – that is what people are used to paying. £0.99 is what we’re thinking when we consider buying small DLC and £1.79 in comparison looks much higher.

Obviously I’m not suggesting all DLC should be £0.99 but surely it’s better to have a ton more people downloading these little bits at a lower price than less people at a higher rate?

As an aside Home is becoming an interesting prospect – the idea of game launching (meet up with friends in Home first then it puts you all in the same game room for whatever you want to play) is a great one and the social aspect is interesting. Chatting to other gamers could be fun if you’re in the mood.

For me the one thing they need to sort (other than pricing) is the loading times. I know it’s still in beta and I’m sure they are working on it but it’s pretty annoying. Couldn’t it automatically download a few of the main spaces in the background so they are ready when you want to move on?

LittleBigPlanet is another game that revolves around DLC but while I commend their dedication to user created levels being downloadable for others to play I feel the main DLC (costumes for the Sackboy characters) is again slightly overpriced and needs a rethink.

On the other hand something like the Metal Gear Solid pack was pretty good value in LittleBigPlanet as it offered not only new levels but new tools to help you make better levels yourself.

DLC IS the future of gaming.

We will get our content via digital streams – the introduction of the PSP Go! and Sony’s continued support of the PSN Store show they are serious about digital content going forward.

Whether it’s user generated ala LittleBigPlanet or add on packs for existing games – I just hope Sony and the developers can work together to bring the prices down on this type of content.

Latest Bug Killer? Patch It Up!

With the advent of online gaming and the wonderful ability to enhance already bought games via updates/patches I had hoped games developers would be putting a lot more thought into their products and planning DLC/features to liven up games.

While this is true for many developers a worrying trend is arising among the rest culminating in Prototype being released this week broken.

And I don’t use the term ‘broken’ lightly. From what I can gather online at the install screen before the game loads up it tells you that you don’t have enough free disk space no matter how much you delete! 😡

The solution, according to Activision’s help page, is to delete a few things or try installing a different game (?!). Eventually you’ll do something to make it work. Sweet Lord they’re not even sure exactly what you have to do.

But they will be releasing a patch to fix it asap.

And there ladies and gents is my problem with all this.

Now I understand that mistakes happen and that a patch may be required to fix it but games are being released littered with bugs (Alone In The Dark, Fallout 3 etc) and then being patched to fix ’em up later (or not in the case of Alone In The Dark :lol:).

I mean look at this video, he’s supposed to be able to climb that rope!!!

But this is different.

It’s not an in game bug – this happens when you install the game. BEFORE. YOU. START. 😡

How could this possibly have not been spotted by the people who’ve been testing the game out.

In this day and age it’s a disgrace this sort of thing could happen – I’ve heard of games freezing up etc but never have I heard of a brand new game that you can’t actually play at all!

I was really looking forward to Prototype and I won’t be boycotting the game or anything like that but it’s made me wonder whether the game will be full of bugs as well 😦

I don’t know who is to blame – the people making the games or the publishers trying to rush them out onto shelves but we shouldn’t be expected to buy a broken product that’ll be ‘fixed with a patch asap.’

PSP Go!ing To Be Reborn?

Well while the dust is settling on E3 I thought now would be a good time to do a piece on the PSP that I’ve meant to do for a few months.

My PSP gets plenty of use, I have a long journey into work (2hrs each way) so I have lots of time to play.

I would say 85% of my time has been spent on Football Manager. Firstly because it’s addictive as hell and secondly because there isn’t much else I’m bothered about playing on PSP.

Most of my friends with PSP’s barely use them nowadays and they sit unused and unloved in a corner somewhere.

Basically us PSP’ers get a handful of shoddy PS3 ports and loads of retro games (which I love but bloody hell could Midway squeeze any more of the same games on a slightly different compilation?! :mad:).

The last decent game was God Of War: Chains Of Olympus which was short but immensely awesome 😎 That was released in 2008. 😦

Then all of a sudden a few months back a shedload of games were announced:

Assassin’s Creed Blood Line

LittleBigPlanet

Motorstorm: Arctic Rift

Indiana Jones: Staff Of Kings

Madden 10

RockBand

I honestly thought it was joke. At this late stage in it’s lifecycle (almost 4 years in!) we are being treating to a plethora of excellent games? 😐

There were even a few other games that didn’t interest me but some people would be excited about (Final Fantasy and the like).

I googled and checked my favourite game sites… It seemed to be a genuine announcement. As a last precaution I checked the date wasn’t April 1st.

Nope, it was true. Brilliant. 😎

And then further down the line the rumour mill went into overdrive about a new PSP – ‘PSP Go!’ It doesn’t need UMD’s – it’s completely digital. I saw the mock up photo (which was pretty much what the final product looks like) and I liked it very much 🙂

Since then we’ve had E3 and the full PSP Go! announcement.

My reaction had many stages:

1) Seeing it – Yay! Looks great 🙂

2) Closer inspection – Ah, it doesn’t have a second analogue stick 😦

3) Hope and digital confirmation – Still looks great and I’m used to one analogue stick now. Digital is cool, don’t care how I get my games and longer battery life is sweet. Think I’ll replace my old (original) PSP with one of these 😎

4) Epic fail – $250???!!!!!!! 😡 That’s £150 directly converted but I imagine it will retail at £200 here in the UK. For a new digital version of a device I already own? FAIL 😥

If you don’t already own a PSP and are cool with getting your games digitally this (possibly) isn’t so bad.

I certainly won’t be getting one until it drops dramatically in price (I’m talking dropping to £120 at least) and I should think even people who want a PSP and don’t have one may think twice about a handheld that costs more than an XBox 360!

PSP Go! looks like a lovely piece of kit but the price has killed it for me (for the time being). Maybe if I get my hands on one and it’s loads more comfortable etc I might reconsider.

But that wasn’t the only PSP news at E3, we also had the following announced:

Gran Turismo

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Oh yes.

A new Metal Gear game 😎

I’m not a huge fan of Gran Turismo on PS3 – it’s ok and 5 looks sweet but I don’t have the commitment to stick with it. But PSP could be a different matter as I could (technically) play it everyday.

These games (and the inital list above – except Madden) aren’t ports, they are being specifically designed for PSP.

Jade Raymond confirmed in an interview that Assassin’s Creed on PSP will reveal the link between Ailtair and Enzo. This is exactly the kind of content and side story that is perfect for the PSP platform.

We’ve also had the (slightly) limited but very fun Resistance Retribution in the meantime – again not a port but a Resistance game in it’s own right.

So to put it bluntly after nearly 4 years of moaning that there are no decent PSP games on the horizon I find myself excited to own a PSP going through the rest of this year and into 2010 – rumours of another God Of War game make me smile and I hope they are true but even if they aren’t there is enough coming up to keep me satisfied.

And Football Manager 2010 should be out towards the end of the year as well 😉

The Bourne Conspiracy (PS3) – Review

The Bourne films are among my favourite in that genre. Matt Damon did a sterling job of bringing Jason Bourne to life.

Sadly for one reason or another Damon is not featured in the game based on the character of Jason Bourne.

It means the illusion is slightly shattered as you control your average joe as Bourne but if you can look past this – and the fact the game deviates from the plot of the first film – then there is some fun to be had here.

The game is set up for you to play through the film’s events, interspersed with flashbacks to previous missions Bourne has done so that the game isn’t shorter than it already is.

And it’s a pretty short experience, clocking in at somewhere between 4 and 5 hours.

Like ‘Wanted‘ this certainly isn’t a game you should pay full price for – you probably wouldn’t anyway as it’s been out a while. I picked it up in Game for £7.99 and at that price it is a worthwhile purchase (or rent it).

The Bourne Conspiracy uses an ‘adrenalin meter’ to assist you in combat. Square is light attack, with Triangle as hard attack and X as block. You can throw combos by basically mashing the attack button and holding either down will see Bourne perform a roundhouse kick.

By attacking you build your meter up (to a maximum of three) and can then press Circle to perform a takedown. Either hand to hand or with a weapon.

You are then treated to a glorious set animation of Bourne despatching his opponent in the brutal style seen in the film.

And if you charge it up to three you can then take down three opponents in one bloody set piece. 😎

There are JUST enough variants of these to avoid too much repetition – being honest coming out of playing a fairly helpless soul in Fahrenheit I never got tired of performing takedowns and being an overpowered secret agent was just was the gaming doctor ordered.

The combat itself did really drag though in the final third – it was really really repetitive 😡 and a few new combos or moves would’ve helped immensely.

The storyline is much of a muchness – following the film with the flashbacks not particularily integral to the plot but welcome nonetheless.

You even have a driving section with the Mini in Paris which pretty much consists of holding the accelerator and steering where directed – not much of a challenge but something different at least.

The Bourne Conspiracy isn’t a terrible game, it has some inventive ideas it just feels like maybe they were trying to cater to too wide an audience. Certainly the combat could’ve been made more enjoyable but it was a fun few hours of gameplay and would be good for people looking for something not to taxing to blast through in a couple of sittings.

This gets a 7 rather than a 6 solely down to my enjoyment of the adrenalin takedowns.

Rating: 7/10

TV: Cancellations And Catching Up

TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES

Wow. Just can’t believe this show has been cancelled. I know it’s down to bad viewing figures but I suspect it’s Friday night slot didn’t help matters.

Apart from one episode (the “Spiritual” one, seriously what were they thinking?) Sarah Connor Chronicles has been bang on the money every week.

The (slightly creepy) relationship between Cameron and John Connor really delevoped and. Summer Glau was brilliant as Cameron. Some of her delivery was the highlight of the show for me, it was like having a kickass version of Will Ferrell’s Buddy The Elf. 🙂

I really enjoyed this show and still have a flicker of hope it might be picked up by another network.

If not I’ll be waiting for some sort of Blu-Ray boxset of all the seasons so I can relive it all again!

 

PRIMEVAL

Season 3 of Primeval is scooting along at a great pace and the episode involving Abby’s brother visiting the future was probably the best one I’ve ever seen.

On the whole despite losing a main character or two the show is developing nicely and should be the source of some good old fashioned family fun going onwards.

The special effects deserve a mention as well as they are a vast improvement on previous series and hopefully this standard will be kept as the series continues.

I think there is still plenty of mileage in the format – especially with regard to them being able to go through the anamolies as well.

 

PUSHING DAISIES

Ah Pushing Daisies.

Brilliant start to the first season, so-so end of first season but this season has been immense and while I agree the show’s arching storyline hasn’t fascinated me the individual storylines per episode have been great.

Very well written and the comedic timing of all the actors (especially Chi McBride who plays Emerson Cod) has been excellent.

I’m still not sure how this had declining viewers and got cancelled – this season has been really good.

Looking forward to seeing how they wrap the storyline up – this is one show I’m really hoping does have a happy ending.

 

MY NAME IS EARL

Looks like I’ll be trying to find something to watch next year with all these shows being cancelled 😡

Again I thought this season was a return to form for My Name Is Earl and whilst I can understand that the list idea might be getting stale for some people the scope for where this can go – even at this stage of the show’s life is a positive thing for me.

Someone has started the traditional ‘save our show’ campaign but is it too little too late?

It will be a shame to see Earl leave our screens but it’s been a fun few seasons.

 

DOLLHOUSE

Well at least one of these bad boys has been renewed for another season! 😎

Eliza Dushku stars as Echo, one of several ‘dolls’ in the aforementioned house.

Basically people who, for one reason or another (yet to be revealed) are now human shells.

They are hired by high paying clients, who dictate who they want them to be abd how they want them to act.

A specific set of ‘skills’ are imprinted into the them and off they go. None the wiser, doing whatever they are supposed to before returning to the Dollhouse to have their imprints and memories wiped so they can start all over.

Coming from Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly, Dr Horrible) I was expected it to be good but it’s exceeded expectations and it’s nice to tuck into a new US show knowing it’ll get a second season.

 

GHOST WHISPERER

Melinda (Jennifer Love-Hewitt) and Jim (David Conrad) return to our screens picking up where they left off.

Melinda is still helping people with their nearest and dearest who won’t move on to the other side.

Professor Payne (Jay Mohr) has left, which I feel may leave a void as Mohr’s comedy brings a nice light touch to proceedings usually.

One thing that confused me – the tears when he left from Melinda, worried about a friend or something more romantic?

I thought the former but a fair few others think the latter.

Have only seen one episode so far so can’t judge the season just yet but it’s nice to have it back on the Sky+ planner 😎

 

FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS

New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk parody act return with a second series that sees the band managerless but getting into the usual scrapes – before Murray returns to… well get them into more scrapes to be honest. 😆

The songs are still just as strong and the episode where Jermaine becomes a gigolo was wickedly funny.

I heard this will be the final season as they don’t want the songs to weaken which I can understand but it’ll be a sad day when Brett, Jermaine and Murray hold their last band meeting.

If you’ve never seen Flight Of The Conchords before check out the video below from season one to see what you’re missing.