UNFORTUNATELY MY DVD-encoder is completely beyond the meager electronics skills of this wayward games reviewer, but I’ve never been one to let something that simple sway me from my life’s…uhm, something other or other. Whatever, the point is, it’s been a while since I last wrote anything even remotely like a review. The itch has struck again, so I apologise for the pictures being a mixture of Google supplied and digital camera snaps of my TV screen. But at least I’m back on form with my very first X-Box 360 review.

Alas, I picked a rather…colourful game for my first choice. Regular readers will remember that I dabbled with Alone in the Dark on the Nintendo Wii some months ago. I was…unimpressed for the most part but allowed a lot of slack with the flakey gameplay given the overall quality of the story and the experience as a whole.

Sadly, the “next gen” version of the game does not hold even such a complimentary standing as that. The story is, as with the Wii, outstanding, and extremely well scripted. For the most part t’s identical to the Wii, with only some minor differences apart from the ending which is both more and less open at the same time. Mostly in so far as there are two which are dependent on whether or not you pop some lead (no that isn’t a euphamism) in Sarah’s skull or not.

Unfortunately however, even the outstanding plot and scripting, and the addition of a mostly open environment (almost the entirety of New York’s Central Park) do little to make this game anything more than a passable few days. Though it does give you an easy 1000 points for your gamerscore. Not much more than twelve hours of gameplay once you knuckle down to it. Though be warned, the Handyman Carnby achievement can be a real bugger to get.

The control scheme is the real killer for this game. Especially with the driving sections. Though they do make the game flow better, allowing you to move from one location to another much faster than on foot, and without having to worry overly much about the monsters scattered around the area. Unfortunately, the cars are so gruellingly painful to control that it almost kills the game entirely. A number of occasions I came very close to losing all patience and just packing it in. But I persevered, and all I can say is that it was an overall pretty “meh” experience.

Worth looking through for the plot, but not much else. Something to pick up cheap, or rent as I did.

Graphics: 8/10
Gameplay: 4/10
Audio/Music: 8/10
Plot/Scripting: 9/10
Overall: 5/10

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Unfortunately, whilst the Reaper and I were expecting that the post New Year period would bring with it the opportunity to kick back a little and come back to some more important thins (like playing games, writing reviews, watching 80s TV shows and eating cake) we have actually found ourselves more distracted than ever.  However, fear not, for we have not been idle.  All of those reviews, and more, that werepromised way back when in the middle of December will soon be upon us.

We have also now requistioned a reliable X-Box 360 spokesperson.  My fabulous new girlfriend Lissa, who is one of the primary reasons I personally have been so…distracted of late.  So, thankfully, the rather weighted bias towards the Wii and Playstation 3 will be gradually offset as we move to a more balanced approach to review publication.  Hopefully, we should soon be in a position to get one from each of the current primary platforms each week.  That being Playstation 3, Wii, X-Box 360 and PC.  As well as a spattering of others here and there such as downloaded games and the odd retro classic.

And, finally, the Reaper, my amazing new girlfriend and I have been working on a seperate internet venture that will see distribution, hopefully, some time before the end of next week.  A twelve part Star Wars audio comedy/drama that we believe many of our loyal readers (hoping that we actually have some) will find to be at least moderately entertaining.  Also, next week should hopefully see a return to posting as I have both a Wii and PC title to air my views on.  The PC game I have choen should prove to be most interesting as it is something which has devided a great many gamers for a number of years now.

Keep your eyes peeled everyone.  There are good things to come very soon.

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I loved the first game, and this game only improved on everything that i loved in the original.  The guns all track better than in the first making it easier to hit enemies, they are more balanced and some arent ridiculously overpowered anymore as well as adding a few more guns into the mix. The cover system still works great but is improved and more refined over the original. The story mode reminds me of a good action movie with lots of explosions and big monsters.

The old and new multiplayer modes are fun and will keep you going for a long time after the story if you are into the game play. My favorite part of this game has to be the new Horde mode where you just fight wave after wave of Locust enemies that progressively get more powerful testing to see how long you can survive.

The graphics are better than in the first adding more color and life into the game over the original drab brown and grey color pallete and over all more detail. the swarming effects that the unreal engine added were cool to see as well because it put around 100 or so enemies on screen at once in certain parts.

Anyways to cap it off this game is a must have for shooter fans or action fans, if you’re only into games for the story or level ups i’d stay far away though, but i will be playing this game for a long time into the future just because the gameplay is so fun and the awesome new horde mode.

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JUST OVER TEN years ago now, some of my more financially endowed acquaintance’s started telling me about a new game called GTA. Enthralled, it seemed, by the gratuitous violence I was inundated by phone calls and conversations that consisted pretty much of “lolz, I brok da lawz”. Within minutes I equal parts bored and confounded that something so banal could keep grown men entertained for hours on end. I finally had the chance to play one of them in late 98 and was less than enthused. Then again a year later when a friend picked up Grand Theft Auto II on the Playstation and lent it to me for a while. Yeah, it was fun randomly blowing things up and killing everyone in sight for the sheer hell of it.

For about ten minutes.

Fast forward to 2003 and I decided to give Grand Theft Auto : Vice City a try because I’ve always been something of a Ray Liotta. And this time my attention was held for much longer than ten minutes. Yes, all of the childish propensity for random acts of violence and gratuitous law breaking was still in place. And, yes, our good chap Tommy is an homicidal, sociopathic maniac hell bent on earning as much money, and screwing over as many people as possible as he can. But this time there was also a strong plot to propel us forwards. And though many have accused Grand Theft Auto, and Vice City in particular, of glorifying this kind of behaviour, it simply isn’t true.

Yes, the Grand Theft Auto series does focus on the criminal underworld. Dredging up the very worst possible examples of Human behaviour. But glorifying? Nee I tell you. A simple representation. Like it or not, accept it or not, these kinds of people really do exist in the world around us. And there are strong arguments in favour of exploring this darker side of our nature via the medium of film and video games. Surely, ’tis better that than doing so in the real world. But I digress. This article is to discuss my impressions of the latest chapter of the Grand Theft Auto series and is not intended to be a sociological thesis (though I’ve been known to do those as well from time to time).

Once again, before the game was even released there was a furor of controversy surrounding it. Mostly by people who have been condemning Rockstar right from the beginning without ever actually stopping to fully explore the games themselves. Of course, the argument there being that the games are so intrinsically warped and criminal in their nature that these good, upstanding people would never sully themselves by stooping to such practice. But then, how can you truly know the games are so bad if you haven’t taken the time to see for yourself and are judging only from second hand information?

Which brings us to the meat of the matter. How does Grand Theft Auto IV compare to it’s predecessors?

Well, the technological advances that have been made since the previous generation of video games consoles show immediately in both the appearance, and the scale of the game. The environments are impressively large and extremely well realistic. Though the people themselves are still obviously animated, at times you could almost believe that the vehicles at least have been photo-captured rather than graphically rendered. But still, this is only the window dressing. Is the game any good?

Well, in short, yes it is. Though it’s never that simple. As with anything, some people will like the game, and some people won’t. The story is typically convoluted and follows pretty much the same pattern as each of the prior titles in the series. Our boy Nico Bellic arrives on a boat from the Motherland and is met by his cousin Roman who, it turns out, is well versed in the ways of hyperbole. Far from being a wealthy entrepreneur with a girl on each arm as his letters back home have attested, the lad lives in a grotty, cockroach infested dive of a place. And so our erstwhile anti-heroes quest for fortune begins.

As with each of the games before it this is the motivating factor throughout the entire game. Even after your fortunes have turned greatly for the better. There’s a bank job about half of the way in which earns you a nice, tidy, quarter of a million dollars so the whole “I need the money” argument doesn’t really work so well. But this is typical of Rockstar, and has lead to phenomenal sales of each installment so far. So, basically, if you liked the previous games then this will be more of the same. If not, well, it will still be more of the same.

However, just because the meta-plot is, to put it mildly, a little flakey, it doesn’t mean the game itself suffers from poor scripting. The dialog is strong and the voice acting is, as ever, top notch. And where, in previous games, we were used to a half minute to sixty seconds of cinematic before heading out on our latest mission, some of them now go on for four to five minutes at a time. A definite plus.

Add to this the introduction of some new gameplay features such as being able to pop out and fire from cover and “micro aim” (using the right analogue stick to shift your reticule from the default chest target after lock-on so as to pop out for head shots, or shoot someone in the legs as they flee), as well as the option of controlling the speed of your vehicles via R2 (no more tapping the X button to keep from driving too fast for those of us who like to cruise rather than speed our way through the cities) mean that the game flows a lot better.

Another, on the surface minor, but in actuality huge new feature of the game is that Niko can actually smash open the window of any vehicle he comes to and reach in to unlock the door. No more of this running around madly trying to find an unlocked car in the middle of a gun fight. Extremely useful I’m sure we all agree. Also, now that we’ve moved firmly into the present day, we have the opportunity to visit internet cafés and download new themes and ring tones for your mobile. All of which add to the immersion of the experience as a whole.

The greatest feature in my opinion, is that at certain points in the game you have to make key decisions (mostly of the kill or don’t kill variety) that will have some minor, and some not so minor effects on the flow of the story. Culminating in two possible endings. Neither of which is particularly happy, and this has lead to some degree of animosity from many people who have played the game. Some going so far as to accuse Rockstar of preaching about the dangers of leading a criminal lifestyle no matter how moral you choose to be throughout the flow of the game. But when all is said and done, those moral opportunities are very few and far between, and though Niko is as much a victim as anyone, and is actually quite a likable individual, the fact remains that he is still a criminal. And some of his actions show a truly callous undertone to the primarily quite approachable man on the surface.

Unfortunately, this seems to be, once again, an effort by Rockstar to argue back against it’s detractors which will go unnoticed by all except the wrong people. And whilst I doubt it will have any significant overall impact on their future releases, it has gone some way to alienating people. Personally, I liked both endings. They’re very sad and dark, but that fits with the entire feel of the game. Liberty City has always been a harsh, forbidding place in previous titles, and even more so now that it has been realised in such intense visual detail. It only makes sense that the events that take place there should be equally depressing.

One final feature I would like to discuss before summing up is the new “random encounter” system which has been introduced. At times you will notice a small green cross on the radar. Approaching these areas will lead to short sub-missions both with unknown, and previously encountered residents of the city. They have no significant impact on the flow of the game as a whole, but, again, they heighten the experience as a whole and add a sense of life to the city in so far as that there are people leading lives that have nothing to do with the primary events of the plot.

Overall, I rather enjoyed the game. Though it was on the short side (only around eighty missions) it still took a long time to get through it all because the missions themselves were notably longer than we have had before. Though some, still, were of the couple of minutes to finish variety, others would keep you going for significantly longer. Though it has to be said, this is a controversial game because it does break away somewhat from previous chapters as I have said above. Still, on the whole, this gets a recommendation from me. Just be aware that the game is both very similar, and radically different from previous experience.

Graphics 8.5/10
Gameplay 8.5/10
Audio/music 9/10
Plot/Scripting 9/10
Overall 9/10

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A good game is hard to come by these days, an amazing game is rare to find, and you can almost forget finding a game that’ll leave you speechless and wanting more. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the latter. Not only
does this game have spectacular graphics, but very well coordinated controls.

The plot is very well constructed and the physics of it is almost one hundred percent perfect. The plot is fairly easy to understand, you start off as a recruit for the S.A.S. (Special Air Services), named “Soap MacTavish”. Captain Price is your leader, and you almost always have the technician Gaz on your S.A.S. team.

The developers of this game did a very good job opening the game up to you, having you do the normal training stuff first, and then going on your first mission. During the game, you’ll switch point-of-views with another character, a U.S.M.C. (United States Marine Corps) soldier, named “Paul Jackson”.

You can tell when you’re either Soap or Paul by the little twirly symbol on the screen as the level first begins to load, or when one of your team mates calls you by your name. One thing that I find nice about CoD4: MW is that you don’t have to stare at a blank screen as it loads.

It will usually show a world map of your current position from the previous mission, and then move to the next position on the globe for the following mission. Not only that, but it goes into detail about what you’ll be doing in that following mission, as well.

This makes it so that you can have your eyes on the screen and paying attention to what’s going on, if you’re interested in the story, rather than looking away at a magazine or something else to keep you occupied while
it loads.

There is a total of 21 missions, although one of them is just an opening scene showing the credits for the developers. They’re split into five parts, “Prologue”, “Act I”, “Act II”, “Act III”, and “Epilogue”.

The Epilogue holds only one extra mission that pertains nothing to the story previous to it, but I’m sure most, if not all, players will remember this mission very well. Music is not something you’ll hear often in this game when playing a mission, however when you do hear it it’s definitely worth listening to.

The opening movie track isn’t so bad, really shows how much action can go on in war. Most of the time you’ll have to disregard the music, because you’ll want to know what the characters are saying so that you know what to do to progress in the level.

The track for the Epilogue mission holds a special place in my heart, and I’m sure I’ll never forget it, but that’s beside the point. This game doesn’t have a lot of outstanding tracks, but they’re there and definitely worth taking a chance to listen to.

What am I doing talking about a First Person Shooter game without even mentioning the guns? Not only are they in great detail from your view, but the reloading animations are very realistic. I believe most of the time you’ll end up using an M4 Carbine or an AK-47, but there are other guns worth mentioning like the MP5 (Sub-Machine gun, M16 (Assault rifle), P90 (Sub-Machine gun) and the Dragonuv (Sniper rifle).

There are also Light Machine Guns, that can hold quite a good bit of bullets in them. Sadly the reloading for them takes forever, and personally I’d recommend not using them. This isn’t a guide, though, so do what you want with guns. Most wars aren’t fought with only guns these days, though.

There are also grenades, flashbangs, stun grenades, smoke grenades, RPGs, Stingers, and Javelins. The last two are mainly for taking out helicopters and tanks, but they’re only found in the campaign levels. Flashbangs are something new (to me, at least).
They blind the enemy and make it so that you can surprise them without taking damage yourself. Stun grenades are kind of like flashbangs, except they don’t leave them flashed for a while, they just can’t move very quickly. Smoke grenades are just that – smoke grenades.

Once thrown, they generate a type of smoke screen and allow you to be able to go around an area without being shot at, or seen. The graphics of this game are simply breath-taking. They truly show the power of the Xbox 360’s processor, and that’s something that should be pushed to the limit.

The movements of the soldiers around you are very realistic, and the voices match the movement of the character’s lips. The environment around you might make you want to just sit there and admire it for a little while, it’s so clean, sharp, and did I mention realistic? Not to mention the shadows of everything are very well done.

Controls for this game are simple, once you get them down. At first you might be a bit confused, but you’ll get the hang of it probably by the end of the Prologue. It took me a while to learn how to use a flashbang, but that’s only because I didn’t read the manual, first. So you may want to take a look at that before you start playing, although that’s just my advice.

Once you get it all down, the controls are actually very well thought out for the Xbox 360’s controller. They actually use all of the buttons, too, so that shows something.

The only downside to this game is the replay value. Once you get all of the achievements and stuff, it’s just not worth replaying. Arcade is a fun little pass-time thing you may want to do, but otherwise, it just isn’t worth it. Maybe if you’re into the story, or just want some action, sure. But the bad replay value is just one small thing, compared to multiplayer, should you have Xbox Live at your disposal.

The online play is alright. You have to deal with other people, so you might have to deal with fools who don’t know what they’re doing, or people who scream into their mics about the most stupidest things. But that’s alright, because there’s also cool people online, so they make up for it.

There are several different modes to choose from, Team Deathmatch, Free-for-All Domination, Search & Destroy, Headquarters, Sabotage, Old School, and Cage Match. There’s an extra mode for Team Deathmatch and Search & Destroy, titled “Hardcore”.

In this mode, there is no map in the upper-left corner of your screen, and everyone’s guns do more damage regardless of what perks you have equipped. I’ll leave the game descriptions and FAQs for you to read on what the different modes are like.

Over-all, this game is pretty damn good for a first-person-shooter game. I’d recommend getting it if you’re a FPS kind of person.
8/10

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