Rotten Milk Found In The Fridge

Okay, confession time. You may have noticed that things have been awfully quiet around here of late, you may be angry, you may even be upset, but whoa, don't go rounding up the mob quite yet, I've been away and brought you all excuses for presents. So, after the last time I posted here, I had an insanely busy week and pretty much survived without sleep for some time while I toiled away, making sure I met real life deadlines. Here's the part where you may need some tissues. After this insane work load I took a break, visited some family, tried to catch up on some sleep and generally have a go at feeling human. During this break, I did skulk off to see my bit on the side, Frugal Gaming. As I'm sure I've already mentioned, I do a wee bit of writing for Frugal from time to time, some of it actually decent. Unfortunately I had to make a decision on where to share my limited free time, and I'm afraid I decided that my personal rant space would have to be neglected while I concentrated on getting some work done for them. Can you ever forgive me? I promise, I never meant to hurt you!

Anyway, as I hope you've noticed, the new Frugal Gaming site is up and running and generally looking pretty trendy. Tragically they've got a really nice bunch of people over their and I've even been suckered into a bit of forum trawling, something I haven't stooped down to for some years.

Hopefully we'll have things back on track over here relatively soon, but until then you'll find my writing over on Frugal Gaming, but just to tide you over, here's a couple of recent reviews I did for them, ciao darlings!

Prince of Persia

Army of Two

Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword

Princely Housekeeping

Okay, so after writing up last nights review of Prince of Persia a handful of thoughts that I forgot to post about cam to mind that I felt were essential and needed to be shared with you. Before we get into these few points, I have to say that a part of me really wanted to give the game a 10/10, which amazed even me, because I feel that a game has to be an amazing pillar of excellence with negligible flaws to earn a 10. This game however, was not without its flaws, so lets get down to business and talk about what I missed.

First of all, I forgot to talk about the final boss fight which, as with Gears of War 2, was a bit of a let down. The boss offers no real serious challenge and basically just requires you to finish a level as quickly as is humanly possible. Compared to the challenge presented by the rest of the game this felt somewhat like a joke! I mean, the end boss shouldn't be impossible (I'm shaking my head at Devil May Cry 4 right now!), but it should be a real test to show that you can use all the skills that you've learned in the game.

The other point I failed to raise was the fact that the game dishes out achievement points like they're going out of style. I was shocked by how many points I had earned by the end of the game, but I suppose I should have expected that I would be earning a lot, as the game rewards you for watching the opening cinematic! Whether or not you see this as a good or bad point depends upon your view on achievement points, personally I'm not sure if I liked it or not, but it did sit consistently with the pacing of the game, and the rewards where for genuine things such as mastering a technique as well as for mundane things like finishing a part of the quest.

I know that I've mentioned this in the review, but the final minutes of the game are totally unexpected and honestly gave the game one of the greatest endings I've ever witnessed in a game. If I wasn't so against spoilers I would splurge everything to you right now, but I know that would be wrong. The game is obviously a set up for a continuing saga, or possibly a trilogy like last generations Prince of Persia games. All I'll give away about the ending is that the final achievment was named; To Be Continued... 

I Just Want Your Extra Time

I feel totally blown away. For those of you who believe that video games can truly be a medium for story telling, the Prince of Persia restart is a true example of precisely this. Emotions fly, witty dialogue is exchanged, sexual tension rises and a climactic ending was of course, inevitable. For those who don't know, the new Prince of Persia games available for 360 and PS3 are a series reboot, and have nothing to do with the Sands of Time (SoT) trilogy from last generations machines. The fresh start has done away with a few things that were keeping the old games a part of the old guard and added in a few ideas that give the game a fresh appeal. Although these changes exist, the game is still definitely a Prince of Persia game, whether you're familiar with it from MS-DOS or the PS2.

So lets talk about these changes, most importantly, in regards to the game mechanics. The 'make it look easy approach' of the SoT trilogy has been taken a step further, meaning that whilst a large amount of control has been taken away from the player, the wall runs and jumps feel a lot more fluid and give the game a more fun rather than challenging aesthetic. Whether this appeals is for you to decide, personal I thought that this change made the game extremely enjoyable. Challenges really came from having good timing, a sense of direction and razor sharp reflexes. One of the fun new additions comes in the form of your co-adventurer; Elika. Rather than having the ability to rewind time as you did in the SoT trilogy, here you have Elika to save you from those perilous falls. Essentially it's impossible to die in the game, whenever you fall from a cliff, or are close to being finished off by an enemy, Elika will jump in to save you. Surely this is the antithesis of all those arcade games that used to give you one life for that sole piece of change in your pocket, all those years ago. This game mechanic allows you to be that little bit more adventurous in how you play the game. Risking longer and farther jumps isn't a problem when you have infinite lives.

The combat is an interesting point, and one that I'm in two minds about, so lets get the negative out of the way first. The fighting system is extremely shallow. There, I said it. It's shallow like a footballers wife with new boobs. That's how shallow it is. The positive spin for this is that as with the movement the fighting feels slick and streamlined. You only ever take on one enemy at a time and have a handful of combos at your disposal, all stemming from three different types of attack; sword, grapple and magic. Whilst this does make the fighting a little dull after so long spent in the game, it is important to remember that their are much fewer battles in this game than there are in other third person action games, and in this game, as long as you're quick you can defeat an enemy with a one blow kill before the fight can properly begin.

This streamlined approach to the movement and combat gives the game a very cinematic feel. Everything moves beautifully and looks luscious with pop up in the game being an extreme rarity. The soundtrack is amazing, the score in the game truly add to the feeling of grandeur and scale. You may be thinking that I have a point here, and I do (because, hey, I usually have one, right?), the game has a strong visual identity, a fantastic score and movements that make it look almost theatrical. Well, to top this off, the game boasts an amazing story. Not a truly original one, but one that unfolds in the way that stories only unfold when told by the greatest of story tellers. The twists and turns are unexpected and the dialogue shared between the Prince of Persia and Elika gives you an amazing bond with the characters and a need for them to make it through their adventure.

It may not be too much of a shock to you, but I was blown away by this game. It took risks in streamlining the game play and focusing more on the narrative, but I genuinely feel this has payed off. I can see why opinion has been so polarised by this title, so my suggestion to you is to pick it up (it's going for cheap in most places at the moment), play it and decide for yourself. It may be just another average game to you, or one of the most amazing unique experiences of your life. I know it was a great experience for me.

9/10

Lost In Anime Overtones

I've just finished Lost Planet: Extreme Condition and you know what hit me straight away? Man was that ever a short game! I had just got in laughing distance of the five hour mark when I finished off the final boss in typical epic fashion. Not that I'm complaining because I spent just under £7 on the game for new, and seeing as all the cut scenes and repeat tries probably put an extra couple of hours on my core 5, I've basically payed £1 an hour for the game. Not too bad, but not great. Anyway, despite my lack of a sense of accomplishment (I'm sorry, but I need to invest more time in a game to feel that) the game is genuinely good fun.

You play as Wayne, a colonist on planet E.D.N. III; a world that is inhabited by a corupt military, an alien race and a band of snow pirates. I know, it sounds pretty stock already, but wait, it gets worse. Wayne suffers from amnesia (the back bone of every Japanese video game story since forever) and you advance through the game unlocking various key parts of Wayne's history, subsequently unfolding an increasingly intricate story. And I did enjoy the story, despite the obviously anime inspired cut scenes, which to be honest were rather cringe worthy at times (I blame the voice actors and poor characterisation), the stories slow unraveling was akin to something like 24 or The X-Files in the way that every answer provided by the games cut scenes, just created more questions. I really enjoyed seeing the story through to the end, I just had to know what was going to happen next.

So onto the meat of the game, the game play. Search this blog for 'Lost Planet' and you will find that I've already wrote about the game play before, most notably the difficulty curve. So in brief, the difficulty curve is like a stretched out slinky with occasional moments of agonising repeated attempts provided by the boss battles and the reasonably paced parts provided by the rest of the game, with its 'if it moves, kill it' ethos. The action is a bit primitive and the controls do a fell a little bit lumpy and outdated, but I think this is mostly in part due to the games age and the fact that we have been spoiled by super slick controls in games in recent months. One of the odd features of the game is the idea of thermal energy. Your health replenishing abilities require you to kill enemies, scenery and activate map posts in order to top up your thermal energy, but this energy also depletes slowly because of the extreme temperatures the games environments throw at you. This means that both your health and play time are limited. Spend too long in the game and you run out of thermal energy and your health bar begins to deplete. Play the game headstrong and take lots of hits, your health bar has to use more thermal energy and you end up with less time to finish the level. It's an odd dynamic that takes some getting used to, but ultimately offers a unique and positive element to the game.

The only other real notable negative is the soundtrack. It really is a bit lacking and often all you have in some levels is the background noise of the wind whipping around your head as you progress and the gun fire and mech stomping sound effects. The only real positive that comes from this sparser soundtrack is that you do become very well immersed in this sense that you are traipsing across this baron uninhabitable snow dusted rock.

So if you want a decent anime inspired, mech centred action game that wants to be the source material it tries to emulate, you can't go too far wrong with Lost Planet, especially as it seems to have become one of those games that is destined to forever live in the bargain bin. Raid the sofa, check the piggy bank, count the pennies and go and buy it.

7/10

Lets Clear A Few Things Up

I've been approached by a couple of people in the land of the living about the scores I give games. Namely complaining that I've been giving out 8's and 9's. Well, there are a couple of reasons for that.

Firstly, this is my blog and as it says in the top right hand corner, I'm giving out my opinions, so if I think a game is good, I will say so, but that doesn't mean that I wont tear a game a new one if it's obviously unplayable. If it's bad, I'll say so.

Secondly, as I've already said, this is my blog. I'm not a writer for any form of games journalism other than what you see here and subsequently I don't receive review code from publishers. I'm going out and buying my own games with the small amounts of cash that I earn from a part time job. Because of this, as I'm sure you yourself will do, I try to hunt down better games, because I don't want to blow my hard earned cash on a complete stinker, just so I can moan about it on here. However, when the time comes that I do get my hands on a bad game (and oh Christ does it ever happen sometimes), I'll let you know.

Basically, the scores I give out reflect my honest opinion of a game, I'm under no influence from anyone to say otherwise, I just happen to have been playing a good run of games at the moment. Hope that clears a few things up for you, oh, and if you want to see a bad review I've been holding out on playing Too Human, but from what I hear, the games not at its best.

Many Stories Thousands of Years Old, One Game Four Years Old

I have been totally blown away. I have just finished God of War. For those of you who don't know, God of War focuses on the quest of Kratos who is determined to avenge his murdered family by killing Ares, the God of War. The game is set during mythological Greece and pits you against many of the beasts associated with that mythology such as Medusa, the Minotaur and many more.

Kratos is armed with the Blades of Chaos, blades that are attached by chains to Kratos' arms that act as the main weapon and essentially define the combat. The games main selling point is the combat. It's so very visceral and brutal, you really get a good feel of contact with Kratos and the enemies he is eviscerating. The style of the combat is very expressive, there are extremely rare moments where you feel out of control or the fighting controls feel slow. The chain blades give a unique feel to the combat and allow you to both fight enemies at distance and take out hordes in single sweeps.

In addition to the combat controls, the movement feels very smooth making for some great platforming. This is in no small part thanks to the great level design. There are only a handful of areas in which you feel lost as to where to go or what to do next. The game also has a great sense of size and scale. All of the levels feel enormous and as with games such as the more recently released Assassin's Creed, you feel a real achievement when you reach some of the areas that at first seem unreachable. This is an amazing thing to achieve on the PlayStation 2, a piece of hardware that is now 9 years old.

Something of note is the difficulty. The game genuinely hearkens back to the days when games where meant to be frustratingly hard, and just because they required skill, not because they were poorly designed. And the game does require some serious skill. I finished the game on normal, I hate to think what state my controller would have been in, if I had attempted the hard mode.

That brings us to the games visuals. The art direction is amazing and continuous, nothing in the game is truly abstract enough to remove you from the experience. And the experience does look amazing. The PS2 must have been pushed right to it's limits for this game, and it easily looks as though it could be on a current generation machine, rather than last generations hardware. As I've said before, I can't believe I over looked this game until now.

The story is something you'll either love or hate, and this depends on your level of interest in proper old Greek Mythology and the old films that used those stories. Personally I really enjoyed the tale, I feel that it was told well, that the cut scenes maintained the visual continuity and that the dialogue was truly something special and a standard that I wished games today would follow. The ending isn't the biggest surprise, but I won't spoil it for you if, like me, you're late to the party.

I've enjoyed every minute of this game, even when it became frustratingly hard. It's an extremely solid game that makes you feel that you are an immensely powerful mortal, taking on a god. I recommend you get down your local game store and buy it now.

9/10

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.

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall

Firstly, apologies for the poor humour of the title for this post. Secondly, welcome to the first ever review for We Live In Games, thank you, but please, hold your applause until the end.

For those who haven't guessed by the title, today we'll be looking at Mirror's Edge a game that set out to defy convention by applying the first person prospective to a free running meets fighting meets shooting game (you may breathe now). Lets tackle these three mechanics before we get to the meaty part of the game itself.

Now, you may have heard about how the first person perspective can be a little nauseating. Well, I wont lie, that's for uninformed employees at Game to do, it does take a little getting used to and can be disorientation at first. However, once you get used to it, the movement is beautifully fluid. It's like you're controlling an action packed cut scene full of Prince of Persia style wall running, but you're in control of every step and jump you make. The feeling you get once you clamber up a particularly daunting obstacle and have yourself a second or two to take in the beautiful view is truly magical. As the game progresses you learn more and more to look for the less obvious route through your particular level, allowing you to express yourself within the game.

Before we tackle the mechanics of the fighting and shooting, lets make friends with the core game itself. In the game you play as Faith, the new poster girl of illegal package deliveries in a tightly controlled ideal utopia city. Faith fights against the suits that wish to quell freedom and force control upon its citizens, by delivering packages... I know, it sounds a little silly, but trust me, the story does the job of keeping you involved. The suits in the game send crack shot security guards after you and later some free running agents of their own.

This is he point in the review where we need to discuss the combat and shooting. Please tell me you just heard me breathing in through my teeth? The combat seems to slow the game right down, the idea is that you learn how to pull off combos and disarms, giving you a combat system that is supposed to be as fluid as the free running. I have heard people have enjoyed the system, but personally I found that the combat was sluggish and unresponsive. Unfortunately the shooting wasn't much better, and after being spoilt by genre standards such as Call of Duty 4 feels like an alien mechanic in the game. However, escaping the police without tackling them provides some of the most adrenaline fuelled moments of the game.

Ultimately, the confrontations in the game do spoil the fun and excitement of being a super strong free runner who should be able to outrun everyone. The time trial mode allows you to improve your free running by shaving more and more seconds off your time, although the time trial levels are set in the single player levels, complete with police and don't really offer any extension to the game other than the chance to keep on replaying levels until you get a better time.

The game is very short and shouldn't take you much more than 7 hours to finish, hopefully the upcoming map packs will give the game something special to keep you playing it, especially as it looks like they wont have the dreaded police to bother you.

With an adequate story, an amazing free running system and beautiful sights to be seen, the games only failing point is the combat system that slows the pace of the game down. A recommended buy if you can find it at a good price.

8/10

Around Here I Make The Rules, Around Here I'm God

After some pressure from a certain colleague of mine, I've decided that I'll start posting reviews on this blog. Seeing as I'm in charge the reviews will be a healthy mix of the old, the new and the obscure, but will always video game related.

Following a lot of consideration and a few conversations with some influential people, I've settled on a good old fashioned score out of 10 system with a 10 for a must have and a 1 for your next windscreen deicer.

Watch this space.