Eurogamer Switchball Review!!

Wow after so much begging, pleading, pestering and something-else-beginning-with-p Kristan Reed, Editor in Chief over at Eurogamer Towers gave me the opportunity to do a review and get it published. Without too much persuasion I said I'd get right on it.

You can see the results here.



Well, as you can see it got published and Krudster as he affectionately known as, has asked me to do another one, ScrewJumper which I'll hopefully have finished by tomorrow.

Fame at last!! :)

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - First Impressions

My first impressions of the Uncharted demo have been lovingly posted on the digital walls in the network corridors of our favourite Danish/English gaming website Boomtown.


As I'm absolutely knackered this extremely cold Danish winter evening all I'll say is the direct link is right here.

Now go pre-order it or cheat the tax man and import it.

I said go.

Eternal Sonata - Review

What haven't I said about the game already? Seriously, send me a list.

Ho,ho, ho. Anyway, you can read my interview with none other than tri-Crescendo's creative lead, Hiroya Hatsushiba here.

If that doesn't whet your appetite then there a first impressions piece that I wrote and now to cap off the Eternal Sonata hat trick my review has gone up over at Boomtown and you can read it...

...

here.

Over and out.

Conan - PS3 Review

My bosom buddies over at Strategy Informer phoned me up to literally beg me to get off my fat arse and review Conan for the PS3. I was midway through eating my fourth double cheeseburger but being the trouper I am I agreed.

After hours of deliberating, gaming playing, sweating and inane midnight rambling I finally managed to squeeze out a few hundred words on the Conan subject. The results can be found here.

If you want a summary I think Nihilistic Software are a lazy bunch and have literally copied everything that's good about the stunning God of War and worsened it. If you want the long version you'll have to click the link above.

Anyway, here's a low res screenshot:

It does look better than this, honest.

Gran Turismo 5 (Prologue) - First Impressions

Polyphony Digital gave us a taste of things to come recently with their sneak peak at a very early build of the venerable of the next instalment of their smash hit series, Gran Turismo.

Like a fly to a windscreen I searched that magical wonderland we refer to only as the internet, found out how to set up a Japanese account, then shivered with excitement as it downloaded from the Playstation Store.



I immediately got on the Batphone to Boomtown who said I should send my impressions over to them top secret and they'll gladly publish them for me.

As ever, they kept their word and you can read the proof of that, here.

Voilà!

Eternal Sonata - First Impressions

Way back in September I was rather sneaky and crept behind Microsoft's back and used my top secret US Account on their XBL Marketplace to download the Eternal Sonata demo. Naughty, naughty.

Well, those extremely charitable people behind the totally insane Boomtown agreed back then to publish it for me.

Now as it's just been released last Friday here in Europe, and as you're all dying to know what I think of it, I thought I'd re-post my demo impressions from that time. You can read them here.



Also, in case you missed it. I also interviewed Hiroya Hatsushiba, Head Honcho over at tri-Ace for the utterly stupendous site, Strategy Informer. You can read, or re-read that interview right here.

If all that Eternal Sonata goodness wasn't enough, a copy is winging its way to me as we speak and hopefully the review will be up sometime next week.

Sleep easy people, I'm on the case.

Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction - Preview

If any game is likely to save the PS3 this year, then Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction looks to be it. The demo has been available to download from the Playstation Store for quite a while now and my friends over at Boomtown kindly offered to publish my first impressions of Insomniacs latest title.

You can read the full article here.


Hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think. Do you agree? Or did you find it disappointing?

Look out for my full review of the game when it's released next month in Europe.

LocoRoco Cocoreccho Review!

I loved this game. It had been sitting there staring me in the face for quite a while but the other day I took the plunge and my gaming life was all the better for it.

If you, like me a few days ago, still haven't bothered to spend £2 on probably the best use of motion control ever, yes EVER!! then hope fully this will help persuade you otherwise.

Lookout soon for my Ratchet and Clank preview which will hopefully be posted in a couple of days.

EDIT: Blogspot's having a few issues atm., so no picture provided. Sorry.

NHL 08 Review - PS3

Again, a little bit late with this one but I got the chance to review EA's latest instalment of their long running ice hockey game, NHL 2008 on the PS3 a few weeks ago and as I now write reviews for other sites I thought I'd link them to you from here instead of breaking all manner of NDA's and losing my house and family to the site managers.

I wrote it for Strategy Informer on the 4th October and I gave it a total score of 8.2 out of 10 which isn't bad at all. In fact, I really enjoyed it.

If you want read the review in its entirety then you can find it here.

Any comments you have you're of course welcome to create an account over at SI or simply slag me off for not knowing what I'm talking about here in the blog.

Heavenly Sword – First Impressions

The demo weighed in at 996MB and I watched as every byte crawled its way from Sony’s Playstation network down to my PS3. This was a game I’d been looking forward to. I was one of the thousands who gawped in wonder at last year’s E3 at the gameplay trailer on show and couldn’t wait to get my hands on it and try it out for myself. Over a year later and my wait is finally at an end.

Having played most of the launch titles and the immediate release list looking barren, I was hoping for a demo that would give my PS3 some life whilst I wait for the deluge of ‘Fall’ – that’s autumn in English – releases to turn up in my post box. How disappointed I was.

The opening cut scene is beautifully shot with colours and pastel-shades glistening in all their high definition glory. A press of an X-button later and I’m leaping from guy rope to guy rope performing somersaults and all manner of acrobatic feats before a quick tap of the square-button saw Nariko – our heroine – scissor kick the closest enemy in the face before landing in style with all the poise of a Nureyev.

I now found myself poised on a narrow precipice surrounded by at least 10 enemies. With a multitude of combos at my disposal I got stuck in. It is here that the game really begins to feel like God War. Not that that’s bad thing in itself but it doesn’t seem to have added anything new to the combat. One could argue that the array of moves Nariko can pull off and the amount of baddies on the screen at once is a step up from the last generation, but I would call it a step sideways. This sentiment was cemented by the fact that I dispensed of everyone on the cliff on the first time of asking in under 3 minutes by tapping triangle and circle at the same time.

Another cut scene ensued and before I know it I’m surrounded again. This time I’m in a market place and barrels and stalls smash into pieces as the enemies fly from my spinning sword attacks and deadly counter moves. Another 3 minutes later, Nariko surrounded by slain bodies barely has time to think as three more armed-to-the-teeth guards burst through an otherwise locked wooden gate. I hold down R1 to ready my powerstance, grip the controller tighter and...

...then it ends. That’s it.

So after a couple of play-throughs I managed to play through the whole demo in under 5 mins. I went into the options menu to add the six-axis camera tilt but that just seemed like another wasted use of motion control.

So after waiting so long Ninja Theory wave the chocolate cake under this starving man’s nose and pull it away again before I could get a proper mouthful. The morsel that I did taste however was delicious, although nothing about it set it apart from the other cakes out there. Anyway, before I get too hungry I’ll say this: The Heavenly Sword demo is a woefully short and an all too familiar single player experience. If Kratos could actually die he’d be turning in his grave. All that being said and done, I did have a ton of fun, which is what playing games is all about, isn’t it?

Sonic the Hedgehog Review

A Celebration

Sonic the Hedgehog was released on Wednesday the 11th to celebrate the opening of E3 and at just 400 points is was a very difficult offer to turn down. It puzzles me why they released it alongside the dire Golden Axe - available on the same day for the same money. It was almost as though Microsoft were testing us. Will we a) choose games Golden Axe and therefore indicate to the powers behind the selection process that we, the consumer, will simply buy anything for the price of a bacon sandwich or b) choose Sonic the Hedgehog and send the message loud and clear that this is the type of game we want to play on XBLA and this is the kind of money we want to pay for it? Because it is.

The difference between the two is astonishing. Not only in terms of graphics and pad response, but in overall design quality. Although both games were released by Sega within two years of each other, the jump in quality and ideas is marked. If Sega were cutting their teeth with Golden Axe, then Sonic was the step into manhood.
Sonic the Hedgehog went down in history for a reason and playing the game once more on XBLA it is made clear just why we still revere it today.

The Lord of the Rings

From the first moment on Green Hill you’re whizzing about the place getting bumped and buffeted around the place. The ingenious level-design anticipating where you might jump and placing an obstacle at just the right height to lull you into a false sense of security. Your eyes twitch as you try to navigate the jumps, springs and pitfalls that stand in your way progression. You reel as you think you’ve pulled off a lucky escape only to find your path blocked by a set of spikes and watch in horror and the 95 or so rings you’ve hoarded going after that extra life and Centurion Achievement are splayed flickering across the screen only to fade out of site as you hurriedly try to re-gather them all. Great stuff.

Sonic: Spikey

As for the Achievements they are nicely spread throughout the game whilst a few are trying to do their best to encourage replayability and thus actually serving a purpose. For example, the ‘Fast Green’ Achievement is awarded to the player who can complete Green Hill, Act 1 in under 35 seconds. No mean feat. However, Achievements such as ‘Perfect Win’, given to the player who completes the game without dying, is somewhat missing the point I feel. Sonic is all about risk management, going for it as fast as possible. Playing the game cautiously and learning every level by heart goes against the grain of the core mechanic of the game: speed. However, this is countered by the ‘Fast Win’ Achievement, which offers a handful of points to those who complete the game in under 40 minutes. So there’s plenty to aim for the die-hard fans out there.

A lesson to be learned

A classic like Sonic is hard to score. If you haven’t played it before, then it’s a 10, absolutely no doubt whatsoever. It is something that must be experienced and compared with platformers today, still hold it’s own in terms of ingenuity and invention. If however, you’ve played the game to death, both when it came out and in all various in carnations since I’d still score it 8, as it controls beautifully and the challenges offered up by the Achievements really give some added value to experience.

Microsoft’s XBLA continues to receive criticism for charging its subscribers for re-hashes of games that weren’t even considered that great the 100 or so years ago when they were released. Every now and then however, they get it right. Maybe it’s just a case of them finding some old treasure in the dark, as they stumble around blindly throwing out any old thing they come across, or maybe they really are trying to provide a service where all tastes are catered for? Who knows? What we do know however, is that many of the titles release are never really worth the price of admission. I’m looking at you, Yie Ar kung Fu. Still, when it’s good it’s good, as the countless hours spent on titles such as Geometry Wars, Doom and now Sonic the Hedgehog will testify.

I implore all to purchase this game, even if you only play it for a couple of hours. Send out the message to Microsoft that this is the kind of game we want to see reproduced. This is what we want to invest in.

9/10

The Darkness - Devoured on the XBox 360

Beginning

It took me a while to complete The Darkness. There were just as many nights that were spent ripping NPC's hearts out of their chests as there were getting killed within seconds - not being able to get past a certain obstacle that the developers over at 2k Games had wedged in my path. My affection for Jackie Estacado had grown in tandem with the Darkness powers that gradually make themselves available to you throughout the game. His story became our story and we were both interested in reaching the final chapter.

Many FPSs rarely achieve this level of story telling. They attempt to tack on a plot in order to give the aftermath of the massacre you have just partaken in some kind of meaning. Gears of War is a good example of this: I never once felt like I was saving the world, or even trying to. I just took pleasure in annihilating everything in my path and gawped at the graphics along the way. Graphically, The Darkness is no Gears, but what it may lack in presentation, it certainly makes up for in atmosphere. Not that the Darkness' presentation is poor, but it pays more attention to physics and character animation than to whether the wallpaper actually looks as though it's peeling off when you lean up against a bullet-ridden wall in search of some cover. The rag-doll physics are well implemented and body parts splay and flail in a more than life-like fashion.

Without wanting to reveal too much of the storyline, which for me is the game, I'll say this: your journey through the subways of New York is punctuated by chance meetings with old mobsters whom all share your feelings of being sick to the back teeth of your old Uncle Paulie the Don and his relationship with Police Captain Shrote who is in cohorts with Paulie's drugs operation in this modern-day New City that you inhabit. The old-timers you bump into ask you for help along the way, do some odd jobs for them in return for some phone numbers that you can call to hear a quirky message and unlock a wide range of extras including The Darkness comics and golf outfits for your Darklings.

Darklings are your companions throughout the game. They can be summoned at any almost any juncture in a level but only when Jackie has his Darkness powers enabled. There are four types all possessing different abilities; from turning off lights - darkness gives you power so your abilities last longer - to smashing the bad-guys on the head with a golf club. The 4 Darklings can be a great help in tricky situations as they draw fire, enabling you to select from a whole arsenal of weapons that you've got stuffed under your long, black, leather trench coat.

Hmmm. I didn't mention this bit, did I...

Middle

Estecado's love for his girlfriend Jenny, is the driving force behind his actions and his thirst for revenge is unquenchable. We are constantly reminded of his undying and passionate love for her. The sympathy the game tries to evoke however, feels somewhat hollow. As we are not treated to any history of the couple, their life together, their shared experiences, I found it difficult to empathise. The drive behind the story, at least for me anyway, is the various missions handed out to you by the bearded 'Butcher' Joyce, an old friend of Jackie's and quite handy at 'disposing' of bodies. It is the various pieces of the puzzle that you collect along the way and how the dark and mysterious background of your possession unfolds that lights the way.

You are spoken to throughout the game by The Darkness itself, a black, slithering monster that inhabits you voiced by Mike Patton of Faith no More and Mr. Bungle fame. His twisted, coarse vocals add a sick and macabre tone to this thing living inside you. It hates you, you hate it. You need each other to complete your various quests although your motives could be no further apart. The hatred grows as you try and outwit one another, but the hatred you feel only brings you closer together. The power The Darkness covets, the more powerful you become and dispensing of Uncle Paulie's henchmen becomes both increasingly fun and varied. You can suck your enemies into a black-hole, stick your demon-arm through their chests and hurl them into the air. Or how about sending one of your tentacles around corners and through doorways to sneak attack enemies; ripping their larynxs out with sharpened, gnashing teeth? Or simply using your Darkness Guns to send shockwaves through your enemy? It's riveting stuff!

That Demon Arm is sure Handy!

End

For all the morbid pleasure The Darkness brings, it suffers from a few niggling issues that must be addressed. Sometimes your mission doesn't update as it should and it can leave you disorientated. There have also been complaints that some of the side missions simply haven't loaded for some users, making the Achievement hunters out there somewhat disappointed at not being able to up their gamerscore. Also, some of those quests mean that Jackie has to traverse great distances in order to reach his goal and the fact that he moves excruciatingly slowly can make your journey feel like a chore.

I also took issue with your Darkling helpers: for all their abilities I found I only used them as cover rather than them actually helping me. Maybe I didn't use them correctly, but half of the time my "Lightkiller" Darkling didn't kill the lights, so I shot them out with it standing next me look rather swish if not utterly useless in a flat, tartan cap and Pringle sweater. (seriously!) I like many others, also found that for the most part, your "Creeping Dark" ability is sufficient to further your progression - enabling you to stand around corners and virtually never engage in battle. The offering of Achievements for different types of kill does offer an incentive to be creative however. In fact their are plenty of Achievements to go after making the various side-quests a slightly more rewarding experience.

Every story however, must have its end and Jackie Estacado's is no different. Like all well told tales, the final chapter left me wanting more when I put down my pad at the end of the game . Was it really the end? Will we see Jackie again? What of The Darkness? Although Estacado hated him, I rather liked Mike Patton saying weird and scary stuff in my ear for 10 hours. Have 2K Games plans for a sequel? I hope so.


8/10

Super Stardust HD

I was very apprehensive whilst this game made its way down to my shiny black box from the PSN. I was apprehensive because of what Super Stardust HD was billed to be: As good if not better than the now legendary 'Geometry Wars' on Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade.

I didn't like Geometry Wars. I found it too difficult and there was simply too much going on at once for me to get my head round.

There. I said it.

If you're still reading then now you understand my reservations about playing another game of a similar ilk. Still, other reviews were positive so I thought this title deserved a closer look. A decision I'm glad I made.

The control system is simple. Left TS: Move. Right TS: Fire in all different directions. LT: Boost. RT: Smart Bomb. Nothing too complicated at all.

As you're making your way around the various planets, meteorites, alien monsters and little red spiky ball thingies all hunt you down or simply just get in your way. The meteorites come in all shapes and sizes and split into teeny weeny, tinsy winsy smaller ones, all of them in need of a good old fashioned blasting.

As you progress, the sheer deluge of colour and splaying plasma fire lighting up your screen is a sight to behold. All without a shade of slow-down, running at a very smooth 60fps. Although stunning and chaotic at the same time, it didn't leave me with the feeling claustrophobia that Geometry Wars did. A timely boost with the left trigger and I had some breathing space and as you traverse around the length and breadth of a planet, your playing field feels a lot larger.

Shiny, swirly things!

There are 25 levels to get your head round, and considering it took me about an hour and a half to get through the first five that's a good few hours gameplay for around six of your English pounds. Of course if you're a dab hand at this kind of thing, your gaming-time could be considerably less. However, for the price of of a couple of Boots meal deals who's complaining?

Hopefully more games of this quality will be joining Super Stardust HD in the near future. The lean spell that almost all Playstation 3 owners have had to endure recently has been difficult, be we soldiered through it. And with games like Super Stardust HD being the light at the end of the tunnel, it seems we have certainly been rewarded for our patience.

Anyone who needs that kind of casual, 'dip in and out' entertainment that in my opinion the PS3 has sorely lacked since launch, then this is the game to get. Conversely, if you live and breathe for this sort of schmup action, and succumbed to the charms of its evil twin, Geometry Wars, it won't disappoint you either.

Golden Axe

Amid the demos and trailers that Microsoft bestowed upon us to celebrate E3 were a couple of SEGA classics available to download via Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade service. One of those was our old friend Sonic the Hedgehog, the other SEGA’s 1989 side scrolling hack’n’slash Golden Axe. My rose-tinted specs nearly fell off my face when I saw the announcement. I hadn’t played this in years and I really wanted to play it again and at 400 points – use the converter of the left side of the page – I couldn’t really restrain myself, could I? I really should have.

The story, or the attempt at a story, puts you up against the might of the evil tyrant Death Adder’s minions. He murdered your best mate, see. On top of that, mean old Death Adder’s got the King and his daughter, The Princess. The peaceful land Yuria is now seriously under threat and who better to sort it all out then you. But who will you choose to be? I remember always wanting to be Gilius Thunderhead, the battle axe-wielding dwarf. I always found the reach of his axe much more satisfying than the other two, which still seems to be the case. But as most things related to this game, it’s probably just my mind playing tricks on me.

The other two protagonists you can choose between are the barbarian, Ax Battler, wielding a two handed broadsword looking for revenge for the murder of his mother. The last is a long-sword wielding Tyris Flare, a female Amazonian, whose parents were killed by Death Adder. Oh I forgot to mention that Gilius’ twin brother was also killed by, you guessed it, Death Adder. So everyone has an axe to grind. Ho ho.

After playing for about 5 minutes it soon became apparent that they’ve done nothing to it. It still looks identical to how it did 18 years ago, containing none of the high definition make over that we were treated to with Geo Wars, Double and Dragon and the more recent Prince of Persia. This isn’t a good thing. As with most things retro, the rose-tinted glasses lose their pigment rather quickly and you soon get the feeling you’re just playing a cut and paste of the original with no real love or attention paid to it. The music too, unchanged from the original is as twee as could be and does to nothing to immerse or entertain.

Motion Blur on the shieldz!

The game sees you traverse a map to Death Adder’s castle, passing fleeing villagers and engaging the evil, flanking minions. Here the side-scrolling has a rest whilst you dispatch of a variety of sprites ranging from animal-clothed muscle men, Amazonian warrior-esses to sword-wielding skeletons rising out of the ground all trying to prevent you from reaching Death Adder’s domain. You can do this on foot or ride on purple dragons with swishing tales or blue and pink ones that shoot fire. After you have hacked and suitable slashed a cluster of enemies, you can walk in the direction the on-screen arrow points to until you meet another cluster. Rinse. Repeat.

End of level bosses are much like the minions but larger and harder and take a while longer to kill, but nothing a few douses of magic won’t dispense with in a hurry if you’ve saved those little blue bottles throughout the level.

What struck me most, apart from the slap-dash nature of the port, is how short and utterly unrewarding it is. It took me literally twenty minutes to complete it. Alright, I wasn’t going to get Perfect Win Achievement after lazily using about fifteen continues to get to the end, but the game didn’t exactly offer me any incentive to want to sit down and master it. I then completed it with Ax Battler and then Tyris Flare. 1 hour later, I’d completed in every way possible and got 80% of the Achievements on offer. I might ask some lonely sole to come over on complete in ‘local co-op’ mode or bribe someone on my friends list to go through it with me over live to for the twenty five Gamerpoints that would award me. Yes, I do care.

In true Golden Axe style, I’ll keep the conclusion short. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking this is still great. It isn’t.