Forza Motorsport 2!

I rented Forza Motorsport 2 the other week and thus decided to do a review.

Forza Motorsport 2 is a racing game, a simulation racing game. Like Gran Tourismo, this means it's basically very realistic. Handling, Acceleration and breaking is all needed to be inch perfect unlike Burnout or Need for Speed.

As an Xbox 360 game, the graphics are very nice and shiny. The background isn't that great but mostly the cars itself are very nice.

There are 4 game modes, I'll start with career mode. As it is with most games, you start down in the crapper with hardly any cash, just enough to buy a crap scally(chav) mobile. You race your way up into world of racing eventually ending up at the big rally's with an F1 car. There is also allot of choice for cars. From Europe, Asia and America with about 40+ different manufacturers. You can tune your car with different parts (engine, breaks, suspension all that crap) with the cash you win from the races.

The ingenious bit, and truthfully the part I spent most of the rented time on, is the customisation of your paint job. You change the colour of the car, windows all that pap but then you can put vinyls on you car. These just range from basic shapes (squares, triangles, semi-circles) to flames and lettering. Now the ingenious bit is it works like Adobe Photoshop where you have layers. Meaning you can put stuff on top of other stuff and it all ends up lovely jubbly. You can manipulate the shapes in terms of size, rotation and even skewing them. Through this and with practice, you can create some of the most awesome designs and save these cars, take pictures and then even auction them through Xbox Live. I've seen some truly amazing designs that could be mistaken for a painting by an artist. My design was based on Invader Zim (cartoon show) and I personally thought it was good, I spent 2 hours on it.

There is a community for showing off paint jobs on the official Forza forums.

The other game mods are exibition (play against computer or computer+another person) in races to win tracks and cars for that mode. There is also the ability to race online as well which I didn't try.

It's a really solid game and a cross between Project Gotham Racing 3(Arcadey) and Gran Tourismo 4(Hardcore simulator) so fans of either types will enjoy it. I'm not exactly a fan of racing games, let alone simulators but I wanted to try it out and I enjoyed it, though I sucked.

8/10

You'll never have 15 minutes of Fame!

To coincide with the over-rated games post, the under-rated games. Those games that have been shunned for trying something new, odd looking graphics and not meeting the general public's interest of yearly FIFA updates. (Remember this is my personal opinion).

Astro Boy: Omega Factor (GBA)
Astro Boy is developed by Treasure. Typically this means it is a gem. An odd license but still it keeps the Treasure charm of awesome graphics, fighting and ridiculously hard difficulty.It's a 2D scrolling shooter with some flying bits that still work similar. There's a punch button, kick, laser , jump and 3 special moves which in typical Treasure fashion are big and flashy. It's got a really well thought out storyline. You first play through it but then at the end, you gain the ability to time travel. This basically means a level select. It's slightly tediously without a guide as you have to inspect every nook and cranny of all the levels to unlock some cut scenes and other secret levels. Overall it's quite a large game and saved me and my brother from boredom during a holiday.

Jak 3(PS2)
I'm not actually too sure what my allure to this game is. I find most of the aspects to be borrowed and some of them quite poor. But I enjoy it immensely. I think the story is cliche' and acting is a bit crap. Apart from all that I just enjoy the environment, the free(ish) world and the driving is fun. You wonder how it went from Jak and Daxter a cute platforming game in the style of Crash Bandicoot to some weird Rachet and Clank game. The platforming is fun, guns are great and overpowered and the driving, while slightly clunky is awesome. I'd rather suggest a rent to be honest, but I think it's great.

Dead Rising(360)
Dead Rising is actually a well received and highly rated game. I think it doesn't get enough recognition. It's the sole reason I really bought an Xbox 360 and I haven't regretted it. You are a journalist trapped in a shopping mall with hordes of zombies attacking you. It's played in a 3rd person view but can switch to first person when shooting/throwing items. The thing is, you can go anywhere in the mall, do almost anything and fight the zombies any way you'd like. Throw some cooking oil at a zombie and watch how they slip on it, stick a shower head in their faces and watch as blood pours out of the shower head, shoot hockey pucks at them or even throw Frisbees at them .Whether you want to follow the story line, do the mini missions, just plainly kill zombies how you like or gain the mass amount of Xbox Achievements is up to you. It's the best 360 game around, unfortunately overshadowed by the mass hype of Gears of War.

Spider-Man 3
I've been playing this as of late on the Xbox 360 and personally I thought it was a good and solid game. Reviews and opinions have been a bit mixed with many reviews putting it down. Personally I think it's a very fun game to play, mainly on the 360, and with a large storyline and extras to do. It does have a lot of glitches and they still didn't fix, in fact they made the little missions of helping the public out even worse. But those are my only gripes with it. Otherwise it's very fun, the QTE's(Quick Time Events) make a nice change and the combat I found was better.

Runescape
Runescape is a bit of odd choice for me. For non PC gamers it's gonna be unknown and still to PC gamers it might not be heard of. I started playing Runescape with friends back in 2000 or so, it's a very basic Massively Multi player Online Role Playing Game with basic graphics and combat. But it was all very well implemented with tonnes of skills. There was mining, cooking, fighting, fishing, thieving, blacksmithing etc. It also had a special "Wilderness" for player versus player fighting. This was also very well implemented as the further you went, the different levels could attack you. Basically in the entrance of the wilderness, only someone 1-2 levels between you could attack you, at the end, someone 42 levels higher or lower can attack you. I have constantly come back to this game, not in recent times I admit, as it's so addictive. Each time I've been hacked in some way which has made me scarper but still it is an awesome game, well I personally prefer the old graphics to the long awaited new ones.

WWF No Mercy (N64)
This is a pretty old game, but one of the last at the end of the N64's life. It is the best wrestling game in my opinion. If it wasn't for the fact my N64 has died and my version is glitched... I'd be playing it a lot. They added more features from Wrestlemania 2000 and a better system. Every thing was simple but that is what made it great. It's hard to explain now that Wrestling games are really complex but It was just awesome.

Game's with Fame.

This week's article is about over rated games, in my opinion. Those games that earn the stardom but purely through prequels and hype.

Metal Gear Solid 1-2
I actually haven't played MGS3 so I can't really comment but after renting both 1 and 2 when they came out, I thought while it was moderately fun for around half an hour, I got completely sick of it. There is only so much knocking out and throwing in a locker I can take. The ridiculous amount/longevity of cut scenes also was a put off. The fact I played these at quite an early age my have been a harmful factor in the enjoyment area as I've experienced with more complex games, over the years I enjoy them more.

Gears of War
I bought Gears of War when I bought my 360 and I found it to be highly enjoyable, especially in co-op mode. People though have christened it the best FPS ever and the best 360 game. I personally rate Dead Rising as the best 360 game. Anyway, underneath the gloss of GoW is quite frankly a basic FPS game. To say the duck and cover system is ingenious and innovative is quite frankly, lying as it was introduced first in one of the Tom Clancy games. It's highly enjoyable in co-op but it's relatively basic and nothing new.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
GTA: SA is a groundbreaking, free roaming and highly violent game. Rockstar introduced many many many many many new aspects to the game making it the biggest and most intense GTA yet. Unfortunately most of the additions are novel (Working out and eating become a chore) and some practically cheating (Through gambling I gained $7m). Don't get me wrong, It's one of my favourite games and my favourite GTA but many websites and magazines went crazy and got sucked up in the hype too much and overlooked it's many problems. There is a ton of glitches in GTA:SA, the aiming is still crap and the mission structure isn't too bad until towards the end where it gets stupid trying to protect CJ's brother.


Street Fighter 2
I actually think Street Fighter 2 is one of the best beat-em-ups games of all time. I don't think that there needs to be 20 copies released each year in different compilations or on PSNetwork/Xbox Live/Virtual Console. How does this fit in then, well I think its a fine game but it doesn't need the ridiculous amount of updates etc. It seems more overused then over-rated... Get a move on and release SF4 plx!11.

Devil May Cry 3
Well to be honest, I haven't played this a great deal but so far I've been highly disappointed. Upon the first and most awesome cut scene I've ever witnessed in a video game, I unfortunately find out that I can not do half the things in there. Yes I know it's a cut scene and they can make Dante do loads of cool stuff in there that's possibly too complex to do all the time in real-time... But still I hate it when that happens. Games show ultra cool moves in the intro then you move around like as though Dante has a broken leg(compared to the opening scene). I also fail to see why the combat is apparently amazing but maybe that's because I've only just really started..

Virtua Fighter 3tb
This is actually an old game (Dreamcast) but I remember reading magazines saying it was amazing and 9/10. So on release day with Power Stone and Sonic Adventure, this arrived. Steaming pile of crap. It felt so clunky and wooden, the fighters moved about as fluidly as a McDonald's milkshake as soon as they give it you. We were happy to trade it in you can bet.

Crazy Frog Racer
I can't believe this actually received 11/10 on C4 Teletext. Surely only worth a 10/10 for it's originality and ground breaking graphics.

Control yourself!

Controllers are obviously been the most important part of a console. Without one you wouldn't be able to interact with the console. So I'm here to summarize my favourite controllers that I have used over the last 13 or so years.

Megadrive was a great console with a relatively simple controller. The earlier versions only had A B and C which meant it was incredibly accessible with no complications arising. It didn't feature any shoulder buttons in the earlier or later versions, the later version only featured three more buttons in order to help with fighting games (Weak, Medium and Strong attacks)

Playstation had a pretty odd control design for the time and the original version was very similar to the SNES controller as it had directional buttons and 4 face buttons. It also had 4 shoulder buttons allowing games more buttons to use up. After the N64 was released, they added two analogue sticks which were pretty weird feeling and big. Overall a comfortable controller and great for lots of games. The later version had rumble built in as well.

N64 was in my opinion, the best console ever and the controller was as well great. It was the first controller to have an analogue stick and it was perfect for shoot-em-ups as the Z trigger felt like a gun trigger. The only problem was you had to have some weird or at least massive hands in order to reach both the face buttons, analogue stick and D-Pad, which meant game developers often left one or the other alone or gave them little use. The c-buttons also gave developers a lot of options as they meant more buttons. It also had a port on the back of it to allow rumble packs and memory cards

Dreamcast and N64 controllers were very similar in my opinion. They had odd shapes and yet were very comfortable. The Dreamcast had 4 face buttons, an analogue stick, 2 shoulder buttons and the normal d-pad. What was really unique about the controller was it had external port at the top of it, like the N64 controller, but it had two slots for either a VMU and/or Rumble pack. It also had a small groove type thing in near the VMU port so you could hold the wire there and save the wire wrapping around your hand or getting in the way.

X-Box was a hooooooooooooooge console and the controllers were no different. But apart from being big they were laid out well and were fine to use on the earlier games. The later controllers (S-Type or something) were a lot better and comfier as well as the black and white buttons being easier to use and reach. The only problem I found with the controller was really the D-Pad was bad for fighters, I think it's because it was only a 4-way D-Pad instead of the conventional 8-way.

The Gamecube had a very very very comfy controller that was incredibly similar to the N64 one. Yet again it was an odd yet satisfying shape. The shoulder buttons were the most comfy and easy to use on a controller and the while the layout was odd, the buttons were also very springy and nice. The C-Stick was, in my opinion, the problem. It just felt weird compared to the c-buttons of the N64 and felt chunky and impractical.

I can't really say much about the PS2 controller as it was the same as the dual-shock from the PS1. Very comfy with an OK D-Pad and works well for lots of genre of games.

The X-Box 360 controller doesn't look too different to the S-Type Xbox controller but it certainly is. The analogues feel much better, the black and white buttons are gone and replaced with another two shoulder buttons making it similar to the PS2 controller and best of all, it's wireless.

Nintendo are the king of controllers and it's no different with the Wii. Since the Wii is all about the controller it is important that it was great. It is. It's wireless, motion sensing and is quite frankly odd. It's a remote control for god sake. But it's brilliant. The button placement while odd works whichever way you hold it and while we are still yet to see the true potential of the Wii, the games have used it well so far. It links up with an analogue "nunchuk" which is very comfy and has a Z button well placed on the back of it like the N64. It also connects to a classic controller if you wish and that's very similar to the Gamecube. It's an awesome controller only beaten, in my opinion, by the N64's truly awesome controller.

Crackdown

Crackdown, another GTA clone? Well yes, enough to tide us over till GTA4 I think.

I rented Crackdown just last week and played it for 3 days, admittedly not as long as I should have.

The game starts as you choose your avatar (set appearances but a number of them) and then you jump into the game. It starts with a introduction of the gangs, the city, who you are, what you are, why you are there and what your objective is. The narrators voice, fortunately doesn't get annoying, at least for me as he often comments on things you do.

After the intro your thrown into the hideout for "The Agency". A super swat team set to tackle crime and gangs especially. You are a superhero, a under developed weak one at first, who has the ability to kick, jump, run, shoot, pickup, drive and so on. So how is that different to a normal cop? Well as you shoot bad guys, kick them into a pulp, drive over them, blow them up or gather Agility Orbs, you gain orbs and these orbs level you up. There is 4 levels for each of these attributes of Driving, Agility, Strength, Explosives and Shooting. Starting off, you're only able to just clear small gaps and aiming takes a few seconds to adjust. Later on you can jump across the widest gaps from building to building, can aim easily as if you were using a sniper when you are actually using a pistol and kick people so they fly 30 feet through the air.

Another factor is that your health grows. It acts in the same manner as the Halo health bar. You have a shield and then your health, both of which re-generate after a while (when not being hit) and eventually you have 2-3 bars of health rather then one.

Your main objective in the game is to hunt down members of the three gangs. It creates a nifty little system as you search for certain members of the gang in order to weaken certain aspects of the gang. For instance, kill the weapon supplier and they have worse weapons. Killing all the important members will then improve the chance you have to kill the main member of the gang, the boss. There's three gangs to do away with over the three islands. This is where some of the choice creeps in. You could for instance, after entering the second island, go straight after the boss of the gang, if you can find him. But they will be heavily armed, have more men and better resources and cars to stop you. Whittle them down to just the boss left and infiltration is a lot easier, although not a push over.

I never actually got to test multi-player options as I don't have live but the game is hugely enjoyable. From just wasting time trying to look cool as you jump 50 feet in the air across to the next tower or whether you attempt to beat the objectives in the game. The graphics as well in the game are nice with what seemed to be nice cell shading added to 3D effects with colourful explosions and great sound effects.

The problems with the game are simply there isn't the same depth as GTA, the soundtrack isn't as good and it can be quite hard at times. For instance, I walked into the second city after killing everyone in the first gang, only to be bombarded from every angle by the next gang's members. Rooftops, streets, cars and balcony's were littered with enemies causing me to flee every time I went near. The AI wasn't that smart either at times an example is when I faced the weapons smuggler of the first gang, he just stood there pelting me with grenades that I easily dodged, so that I simply tossed some at him making it one of the easiest kills.

After a while, you do need to take a break from the constant shooting and bashing of the stereotypical gang members but unfortunately there isn't much else to do. There is some races, on foot as well as in car, or you can have fun driving and running around and jumping but in the end your forced back into it the gang killing after a while. Although I did enjoy, once my strength was at level 3, taking a run up before flying a kick into random cars on the motorway, the result was fun.

It's an enjoyable game with choice in terms of the path you take in order to beat the gangs, but other than that there is not much to do with no side quests or other jobs of some sort. The linearity of the overall game unfortunately hurts it a lot and the soundtrack, well it interested me so less that I never really took notice of what song it was on.


Overall I give it a 8/10. It's a game I'd consider buying if it didn't seem so short, but it has excellent graphics and is a lot of fun when you are in the mood to kill the gang members or have an idea on how to make your own fun, otherwise it comes up a bit short, I killed two gangs in the short space of 3 days proving its quite short. Still a fun game non the less.

8/10

The Good, The Bad and Sony...?

Sony. Not only did they break into the video games market with the PSone but they took over from Nintendo and Sega. Jump forward almost 15 years and we are at the arrival of the PS3 and almost the end of the PS2.

To start, the PS3 is possibly the most highly anticipated console of all time after the mass popularity of the PS2, but Sony have made some key mistakes in this battle and being a European ( I live in the UK), I have unfortunately felt the full force of the mistakes.

It seemed to start with the mass shortages at the launch of the PS3, only 80,000 or so were available for Japan, Sony's home country. The same with America as only around 200,000-400,000 were shipped, although currently it's in stock everywhere in America. This shortage of consoles led to the delay of 6 months for the European launch which brings us onto another matter...

Sony have stripped down the backwards compatibility of the console for the Europeans so that only 20% of PS2 games are playable ( I think). Surely Sony had a valid reason right? No it was to save money. Yet again this heavily annoyed the European market. We wait 6 months longer then the rest of the world and receive a console with a poor backwards compatibility. Sure you buy the console for NEW games right? Correct, but the fact is Sony's reasoning is disgusting and the fact we pay $200 more then Americans for a console that isn't the same. That's a kick in the teeth.

Sony then a day later announced first party games would cost £10 cheaper in the UK which is a nice bit of news, considering the cost of next gen games, It's nice of them. So what was next for Sony? The GDC of course..

Sony's keynote was headed by Phil Harrison who was joined by the developers of two new features for the PS3. First up was Home. Home isn't something necessary for a console, it's what looks like a cross between Phantasy Star Online and The Sims. Although I thought it looked rather cool, the idea of it is nice and even though it seems to have mashed a few ideas of other companies and games it looks very well done even if it's another way to be advertised products. Clearly the depth of Home is massive with the presentation showing all the little developers/publisher areas making almost a galaxy look to it.
I'll be honest in saying it's not something I'd use but it looks impressive non the less.

Next up was Littlebigplanet. This was, according to those at the showing, the most impressive demo they've ever seen. I'd have to agree. It was hugely impressive, from the Teamwork to the customisation to the humor all mixing to make endless possibilities. I've honestly never heard of those developers but they seem to have come up with one of the most impressive looking and feeling games I've ever seen.

With the launch of the PS3 imminent, the PS2 is surely defunct? In my opinion that's a no. I recently bought Okami and Final Fantasy XII, two late titles in the PS2's life. Soon to be released is God of War 2 as well. These three titles alone are supposedly huge with 35+ hours. If the PS2 is really dead then why would such high profile and quality titles be released within a month of the PS3's release. Add to that the mass of yearly updates which, developers are more used to the PS2 development kits which would surely mean they, for the first generation of these on next gen consoles, will be poor, yet good on the PS2 (E.G. FIFA 2007 is apparently good on PS2 yet woeful on the 360).

So, roll on march 22ND, While Sony, I don't think could be forgiven for the treatment of Europeans but I will still buy a PlayStation 3... In two years. I unfortunately need to start driving and am looking into getting a HDTV so the PS3 is a bit far away for me at this time, what with not many good games, I'll do what I did with the 360 and wait a year. This time a bit more patiently and actually wait for the price to go down.

Thanks for reading,
Nick.

Me, Myself and Games (With some Football)

Hello, this blog shall be dedicated to my thoughts on games. Whether it's a review, a thought on some recent news or a retro outlook.

A little about myself would be that I've been playing games since I was 3, I'm now 17 and currently still at school. I might include some snippets on football as its my second love :).

I currently own a N64, Dreamcast, Sega Saturn, Gameboy Pocket, GBA SP, DS, PSP, PS2, Gamecube, Wii, X-Box, Xbox360 and a Game Gear so I have a more modern collection of games since I wasn't around to witness consoles before the Master System.
Oh and I support Manchester United.

I'm fairly certain my first piece will be on either Sony itself, or Crackdown for the 360 as I just rented that this weekend,

Thanks for reading,

Nick.