Posts tagged game

The third installment of the resident evil film series see’s the survivors of the Raccoon city incident travelling across the Nevada desert in an effort to get to Alaska, supposedly the only place not to suffer from the infected. Alice has separated from the group and is travelling on her own, so as not to be a liability to her friends, eventually she meets up with them and attempts to bring down the umbrella corporation. This film again makes more links to the video game series introducing both Wesker and and Claire Redfield. This film isn’t as good as the second one, there are some very good action packed moments and the virus has spread to birds another new danger however, there are some really long dull parts of the film. It feels liked this film attempted to become more like the video games but failed immensely. They add in all these references and back story and it loses what the previous films succeeded in. The first two films were quite good zombie films but this film doesn’t even feel like a zombie film. Obviously there integral to the story but it doesn’t feel like a horror film, it probably doesn’t help that it’s set in a bright well lit desert. Ali Larter who plays Claire Redfield puts in a good performance amongst a lackluster cast. The scripting is a poor attempt compared to the previous films it just seems to lose it’s spark. 

It’s an okay film, it’s nothing special and probably the least memorable out of the three thus far. I wouldn’t recommend going out to watch this however, Asda is selling the box set of four films for a tenner which isn’t bad for four films. So I reckon that if you got a box set like that you might aswell watch all of them despite it being not as well written as the previous films. 

I have been swamped with work recently, what with having so little of uni left, and having to write a dissertation. Firstly, another update on Game: They won’t get any titles published by Microsoft and Activision. If they still happen to be around come November, they’ll want Activison back on board, because something like CoD will make or break them. Anyway, just a short update, so I don’t keep hammering on about one topic.

Fallout New Vegas was one of the best games last year. I loved that game. It had great characters, a good story, and fun gameplay. It tread the line between action and RPG incredibly well. It was the game that got me into Fallout 3, too. I had tried to play Fallout 3 a couple of times before, and got bored by it before too long. I’m not sure why, but after I played through Fallout NV, I managed to get over the starting hump and finish F3 too.

Anyhow, what I am saying is that Fallout New Vegas is a pretty damned good game. And critics agreed, it got a metacritic rating of 84. Pretty decent score, right? Obviously not good enough for Bethesda, who have stated that Obsidian missed out on getting a bonus payment for meeting a minimum Metacritic rating. Obsidian and Bethesda apparently had a clause in their contract that stated if Obsidian got atleast 85 on the ranking site, they would get a bonus payment. Sadly they missed out, by only one point, but still one point too few.

This news throws up a couple of interesting points. Firstly, it shows what most people often thought is true. Publishers really put a lot of weighting behind what Metacritic says. This seems quite sad, to be honest. I know publishers need some form of feedback about what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong, but this sort of agreement seems just wrong.

Firstly, metacritic estimates a lot of their scores. Most scores aren’t out of a hundred, and some reviews have no scores at all, yet they still factor these in. To base what is probably a sizeable sum of money on it is kind of harsh. Then again, had New Vegas been a little less buggy, maybe they’d have had that extra 1 metacritic score, so it’s still somewhat there fault.

 Diablo 3, a game developed by famed dev Blizzard, has finally got a release date. It will be available on the 15^th of May, after over a decade of waiting. The series has a lot of fans, and I’m sure they’re eager to get it. Personally I don’t see the big deal, the first and second seem kind of so-so. But then, they are over ten years old, and maybe had I played them then I would have loved them too.

In the USA, or specifically Connecticut state is looking to introduce a tax on downloaded content that people pay for. They call this a Sales Tax in America, and it already applies to all physical goods. People seem to be up in arms over this, and I don’t get why. I mean, the tax itself is 8%, which is pretty damned good compared to the 20% we pay over here in VAT, on all purchases. It’s a tax, why should the internet be immune from it? We all hate taxes, but guess what? They are important. We need taxes, sad as that fact is.

Alan Wake, a formerly Xbox 360 exclusive that’s now available on PC, has hit 2 million sales. Alan Wake has been a bit of a sleeper hit, and has quite a cult following. It’s about a writer who’s wife goes missing, and he has to find her, fighting of shadowy creatures as he does so. Anyway, it’s a pretty great game, and it’s nice to see that it sold well enough that it might attract a proper sequel.

That’s it for this week, I’m definitely going to try and write up an SSX review sometime this week, but I make no promises.

So I got the Metal Gear HD collection mainly because I wanted Metal Gear Solid 3 because it’s one of the greatest games ever. Turns out it wouldn’t be the first thing I’d play. Instead fellow member of the stars team Sam suggested we play through peace walker together. Something we had planned on doing since we had it on the psp, unfortunately my psp never liked to connect to the internet making it rather awkward to play together. Now peace walker is actually a brilliant game, when I attempted to play it on the psp I really wasn’t that into it. Maybe it was the controls, or maybe because I was now playing it on a bigger screen it was better I have no idea but either way I’m glad to have completed peace walker. The narrative throughout the game was really intriguing and well scripted. The metal gear series has always had a compelling story to it and it’s really enjoyable getting to play through this part of the metal gear narrative. You play as Big Boss in events set shortly after Metal Gear Solid 3. I’m a huge fan of Big Boss as a character and as mentioned I loved 3 so this game is well worth the play through. If your a fan of the metal gear series of any of the games, this is definitely worthwhile playing and will help enhance your knowledge of the Metal Gear series as a whole. It certainly helped clear a few things up for me. So if your not entirely familiar with the ins and outs of the metal gear story, Peace Walker will certainly keep you on the edge of your seat.

The controls of Peace Walker are so easy to get to grips with and it certainly feels very natural. It’s so easy to just pick up this game and get into, there isn’t really an adjustment period with the controls, vital if your going to drop in and out of playing this game. There are side missions with peace walker and they are well worth doing especially the fulton recovery missions which will gain you more staff members to build up your mother base. Mother Base is another important aspect to this game. Seriously don’t ignore it. The upgrades you can get from working on enhancing and improving your mother base are incredibly useful. So I would suggest if you are playing this game set aside 5 minutes after each mission or every other mission to improve your mother base it’s a great aspect to the game. I like all the side missions and all those aspects within this game. I love games that have re-playability or give you a reason to keep going back and continually playing them. Peace Walker certainly has that, including in your mother base are an army of troops which you can dispatch and send on missions. It’s a really fun aspect to this game, not necessary but it’s something cool and feels like a bonus. The soundtrack in this game is awesome, the Metal Gear series never gets it wrong and that’s what makes them such good games in there consistency. You know that whenever you pick up a game in the metal gear series it will be a brilliant and riveting game. Soundtrack is really important within a game, you may not always notice it but a good soundtrack will certainly make the gaming experience all the more better. I advise people to just listen to the soundtrack of metal gear, it’s amazing. Peace Walker is a very different style to the other Metal Gear games but don’t let that put you off. It’s a really nice change to the formula and is just as effective and compelling as the other games. Visually it’s a stunning game. Some of the cutscenes would make for brilliant artwork.

It’s a really beautiful game and I would advise anyone to play it, even if you’ve never played a game in the metal gear series I recommend you try this out. Now you could buy it for your psp, if you still have one and haven’t traded it in for a vita or you could buy the HD collection which I would recommend more because then you get a bunch of other metal gear games that are seriously worth playing. Even if you have those games already get the HD collection because it’s a worthwhile investment.  

I finally got around to playing and finishing this game! Horrayy! So anyway I think it’s unnecessary to spend ages talking about the game like the story and such because I’m sure you’re already familiar with it so this will just be a really short review. The events of this game take place shortly after the first game, the Joker is infected and dying from his use of titan in the first game. Bruce Wayne gets thrown into Arkham City a section of Gotham cut off to create a new type of prison. Batman spends his time trying to control the violence within Arkham City but gets caught by the Joker who infects Batman with the same deadly disease he is dying from. So Batman sets out on a mission to find and recover a cure. So that’s the basic story of Arkham City. It’s a really good game, in some ways I find it more enjoyable than the first. The introduction of a larger array of characters, is very enjoyable then the focus isn’t just related on Batman vs Joker. I like being able to explore the stories of the other villains some more because some of the characters are actually really interesting, have very enticing stories and deserve the screen time. The Batman and Joker story or conflict is so overdone in some respects, don’t get me wrong I love seeing the Joker and Batman clash, so getting other characters more involved with the story was a brilliant idea. One of the downsides is that you spend so much time in that detective mode. It is quite frustrating. I love being able to examine and be amazed by the scenery and world of Arkham City unfortunately playing the game in detective mode makes it so much easier. With the first game because it the map wasn’t so open and big you didn’t need to use it all that often however, with this game it is useful to have it switched on pretty much permanently. Another disappointment I found was that there were not nearly enough Catwoman missions. I just expected there to be more. Then again I suppose that’s just me being fussy. Despite these two areas the game was excellent. If you haven’t played this game yet I seriously suggest you do. It’s so much fun. the story is compelling, voice acting within the game is superb. It really is an amazing game. The attention to detail and all the little aspects really do add to the whole ambience and feel of this game. This is how good all games should be. Plus with all the Riddler trophies it’s a game that will last. I haven’t completed it like 100 percent there’s still side missions and Riddler trophies I need to attain and I know it’s a game I will go back too. To me that proves how good of a game it is, if I want and can’t wait to get back to playing it again then I know the game is good!

So I realised in my last Professor Layton review I failed to mention anything on London Life. So London Life is like the bonus game avaliable on The Last Spectre. I’m so glad that I got to play this because London Life is awesome. I can see a lot of people not enjoying the game but it is definitaly my sort of game. You essentially go around helping out the citizens of Little London, characters from the game series. You can partake in jobs to earn money to buy new items. You can purchase furniture for your house or new clothes. It’s important to pay attention to your clothing and its score because wearing the right clothing can gain you entry into various shops or restaurants.

Within the game you have two bars, one resembles your wealth and the other represents happiness. The more good deads you do, the more you help out around the town and the more you purchase items the more your happiness bar increases. Likewise with the wealth bar, the more you work or help out in Little London the more you money increases.

So far from what I have played of the game I have met both Layton and Emmy. As a Layton fan, meeting Layton in the game made me so happy. The game is really good I would purchase London Life if it was a stand alone game, it’s a shame that it’s not. I recommend playing this if you have access to it because it’s worth investing the hours into it. The attention to detail in just a bonus game is really top notch. I really hope we see more games like this in time to come, doubtful but it’s a nice dream.