A Far Cry From The Previous Instalment

After all my concern over what game I should play next (I know, life throws these dilemmas at you without warning), I finally decided that I needed to get back to some First Person Shooter fun. So my choices lay with either Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, F.E.A.R., Legendary, or getting back to some Left 4 Dead. Once I had recovered from being oddly obsessed with how my first 3 choices all began with an 'F', I decided that we would see what all the fuss was about with Far Cry 2.

I honestly got a bit bored with the first Far Cry, sure it was pretty, but the shooting felt pretty standard and when the monsters appeared, I struggled to take the game seriously. Subsequently it sits on the ever growing pile of unfinished games. So a few minutes into Far Cry 2 and I find my self feeling similar things. It looks pretty and the shooting feels pretty standard. For the first few minutes I'm convinced that I'm not going to enjoy this game. On a break I even check to see what kind of trade in price I can get for it.

And then something odd happened. All of a sudden, the game became fun. The shooting started to feel perfect (apart from the odd baddie who takes an enormous amount of bullets before falling), I found myself creeping through the bushes to find the ideal approach to take out an a gang of enemies. And once you finish the tutorial, the freedom truly kicks in. I can't even begin to describe how huge and free the game feels. You start to make sure that you aren't left without a vehicle, because it takes forever to get to anywhere by foot. Once you get buddies, you start to care for them, worried about them going out of their way to help you, but being sure that when the time comes, you do the same for them. You learn to buy weapons, rather than take them from corpses, because you don't want to have jamming issues. The game is one the most immersing experiences I've had since Grand Theft Auto IV. I really feel like being in the game is being a part of something real.

The only noticeably aspect that I'm currently unsure of is the isolation. I'm only a few hours in, and already it feels like everybody hates me. Unlike other games, where a variety of NPCs will meet and greet you, spurring on dialogue. In Far Cry 2, they are far and few between. Everyone, it would seem, is angry at you. They want you gone, and they are not afraid to show it. This does leave you feeling very alone. I'm going to leave my decision open on whether I think that this is a bad thing, or if it adds to the immersion.

Review up in the not too distant future.

The Dilemma

Those of you who keep up with blog may be aware that I've been playing the original God of War on my trusty PS2. I've got to be honest, I'm amazed at how much I'm enjoying it and annoyed that I hadn't played it sooner. I'm near the end so I'll save in depth thoughts for a review, but on to the issue of my dilemma.

In my excitement I've already picked up God of War II and I'm more than willing to play it, although it leaves some much newer games unplayed. I really want to start playing either Far Cry 2 or Fallout 3, or put some more time in on Left 4 Dead and the online modes for Gears of War 2. Not to mention the large number of RPG's I've been saving.

Should I really be playing older games when newer ones await? All I can say is thank goodness for the relaxed release schedule for games that I'm really after has slowed up, because I really can't warrant any more games for some time.

Any sugestions?

God of War review up soon, Gears of War 2 review up at some point in the future.

Dead Space Is Air That Is Inhaled By The Body In Breathing, But Does Not Partake In Gas Exchange

Wow! No, I'm not referring to World of Warcraft, I genuinely mean, wow. I just finished Dead Space, and the ending was amazing. But without giving too much away, lets finish the review I started yesterday.

There isn't too much more to cover, as my last midway through review covered quite a lot, so lets talk about the things that you need to finish the game to know. First off, the baddies. They do get worse and worse as the game continues. If you're half way through like I was when I wrote the first half of this review, don't get too cocky, it gets worse. They get faster, they get stronger and on a few occasions you meet monsters that can't be killed by conventional means (you'll see when you come across them). The few bosses are great fun, there is a gigantic boss to round things off in a traditional end of a video game kind of way, and they all offer a real challenge, especially while you are still working out how to put them down for good.

The story is difficult to talk about, as I don't want to be one of those people who put spoilers out that ruin the game for anyone who truly wants to know "what happens next?" Suffice to say, there are twists and turns, characters that you will care for (including the rather quiet protagonist, Issac Clarke) and an ending that I strongly urge you to play through to see.

After finishing the game, I have to say that my initial concerns about the difficulty curve were some what premature. The game does make a jump in difficulty about half way through, that seems odd and out of touch with the rest of the games smooth delivery, but makes sense as the difficulty curve follows the same trend as the game continues.

One more note before I wrap this up. Be sure that once you have your level 5 Rig, you spend the remainder of your cash on power nodes to upgrade your weapons. Trust me, once you get this suit, you wont be needing your cash for much else.

Dead Space is truly an amazing achievement for a publisher like EA, who are notorious for releasing year after year updates of old franchises, adding very little originality to them in the process. Lets hope we see many more like this.

9/10

How To Overcome Your Fears

I'm still doing my best to keep the USG Ishimura free of it's rather out of control infestation problem, so seeing as I've just passed the half way point, I believe it's time for a 'how things are going so far' semi-review.

Let's cover the old ground first, I'm truly enjoying the dismemberment physics, even through I'm a few hours in, I still find myself using the stomp attack to dismember the corpses of both the nasty aliens and the unfortunate crew members. There's just something about the delightful squelching! The atmosphere has maintained the feel that you are actually on board an abandoned space station where something terrible happened and the game has only relied on the lazy shock scares a hand full of times.

Now then, lets breach some new ground. Firstly, the suit, or Rig as it's called in the game, that Issac (the games protagonist) wears. I get genuinely excited by the prospect of finding the schematics for the next level of Rig, not just because of the fact that you become slightly stronger and resilient to enemy attack, but because you gain inventory slots in which to carry vital ammo, health, air and other items that you find on your travels. It's one of the rare yet infuriating moments in the game when you find a room filled with items where you have to decide what to take and what to leave behind. The result has been that I only carry two weapons with me and plenty of ammo for both, rather than waste my time filling my limited inventory slots with a variety of ammo for different weapons.

But there is another reason for my only carrying two weapons. In case you were wondering, I carry the Plasma Cutter (Cutter) and the Remote Control Disc Ripper (Ripper) because I find them to be the most effective. You start out with the Cutter and with it's ability to change the angle that you cut in by 90 degrees it's a very useful weapon when you consider that you deal the most damage when you remove enemies limbs. It's also the weapon that I recommend you spend time upgrading, as it becomes invaluable when fighting bigger and stronger enemies which require more firepower. The Ripper is an excellent second weapon as it allows you to deal with clustered enemies very easily by using its alternative fire mode in which it holds a spinning blade out in front of you for a brief period. It's messy but effective.

You also are armed with a stasis module that allows you to either slow the time around something or move certain objects. For some of the levels this tool is essential to even progress, and for some of the larger monsters, the ability to freeze them in place becomes a vital tool in your strategy. As well as the stasis module you carry an air tank for moments where decks become decompressed or you have to work outside of the Ishimura. Along with your suit and weapons, all of these can be upgraded using power nodes that you find are placed sparingly around the decks of the ship, by spending them at special upgrade benches. This adds another element of strategy to the game as you consider how to spend your power nodes, but trust me, spend them on your Plasma Cutter, you wont regret it.

I'm actually finding the story for the game to be quite engaging, even though it's looking to be very simple, and for those who hadn't guessed from the protagonists name (Issac Clarke), it borrows heavily from a variety of cherished science fiction. You get a great sense of isolation and subsequently there is a lack of dialogue, save for the occasional message from your fellow salvage crew, and the occasional word from some of the victims of the events you are investigating, but when these few do speak up, you do feel impressed by the quality of the voice and motion capture work that has gone into making this world believable.

As for the level of terror the game attempts to instill in the player, I so far have mixed feelings about this. I spent a whole chapter of the game terrified as the difficulty level made an obvious jump and the ammo and health started to become scarce, but I was only frightened because I couldn't use the skills I had already learned to defeat the monsters who had ideas about my life expectancy. This gave me more of an adrenaline rush than the tedious 'boo' moments of monsters appearing out of the dark or from behind closed doors. The game does try to be scary in a traditional atmospheric sense and does almost reach them with it's strong visual style and amazing sound effects. But it falls flat of hitting the scare levels achieved by it's film counterpoint, Event Horizon.

If you haven't noticed yet, I am genuinely loving this game, I'm amazed that a company like EA has put out an original game like this, amongst many other great original titles such as Mirror's Edge. I'm pushing through and doing my best to finish this game soon. When I do I will post the rest of my review, followed by a final score.

Hopefully the rest of the game will maintain the high standard set by the first half.

Issac May Be In Trouble!

I'm still making my way through the wonderful brown world of Dead Space and things have reached the stage where after each nasty little encounter I feel the need to take a break before I carry on. It's at this point that I have to admit that the game may actually be scary. Just a little bit. But I will persevere dammit! Otherwise I'll never get around to watching the Dead Space anime on DVD. That I've already bought. In case Dead Space was any good... I've said too much.

Anyway, apparently there's going to be a comic from Wildstorm to pad out the back story for the upcoming Prototype game. Seeing as I'm looking forward to the game, I may actually check out the comic, after all, I really enjoyed the Mirrors Edge comic (which I will review at some point) and can't see how this could be worse than that. I'm sure I had some logic there.

On a fun end note with some relation to cake, I highly recommend you ask everyone to leave the room to get moist over this. I know I did.

Saying Hello To Someone Can Be Dangerous

After being half scared to death by Mr Relations saying "hello" to me this afternoon, I felt it was time for a 'look-at-me' update of what I'm currently playing.

First up, we will deal with the frightening hello. I'm still having the odd trundle through EA's surprisingly good Dead Space on the 360. I'm up to the 4th chapter and the game has actually started to become scary. Not in the "did you hear that?" kind of way, but more in the "I have very little ammo and health left" kind of way. The baddies have become bigger and nastier and the game has begun to offer more of a challenge. So after all the fun of enjoying the gruesome dismemberment physics, I'm starting to pay a lot of attention to any cues the game gives that a big nasty may be approaching. Which is awesome, because the game now has me really engaged and eager to see what is happening. Which subsequently meant that a simple hello from a friend, rather than a horrible noise from the game, nearly gave me a heart attack. If only the game could have been this engaging from the start.

On the PSP I had been enjoying an immensely good time on the amazing Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of The Lions. Trouble is, I hit a wall. And I mean a figurative gaming one, not a literal one involving poor collision detection, because it's just not that kind of game. In an odd turn of events for me, this meant that I lost interest. Which whilst disappointing, meant I started playing Star Ocean: First Departure instead. There's always a silver lining. It's proving to be a really good game, the animated cut scenes by Production IG are incredible and have left me showing off my PSP to anyone who sits near me when they come up. As for the audio, that too has been really well done, with a great soundtrack and pretty good voice acting.

I'm truly engaged with both Dead Space and Star Ocean at the moment, once I'm finished I'll be sure they both get a proper review. In the meantime, please be sure you don't scare people playing scary games, it's dangerous dammit!