My Usual Spiel: Battlefield 3, Long live the War Veteran(s)

Also Known As: BF3
Also on: X360, PS3
Genre: Online Shooter
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: DICE (Digital Illusions CE) 

Good aftereveniorning, time for more shit I’ve done played and time yet again for another post title, this is the last one I need to create I think of posts with a theme cause I can’t seem to post anymore without it having some sort of theme, or I think the term is regular article, though I still need to ask my good friend Dave Jackson how he gets that‘regular posts’ feature on the side of his blog. Anyway as“The Past and times of Yore” is the title for reviews of games of the past (and sometimes more recent past) “My usual Spiel” is the new title for my reviews of reasonably new games, games of which I came out in the past 1 or 2 years but unfortunately it’s kind of hard to judge. 

I indeed have decided to go back and review past games I have played but it’s kind of hard to differentiate between the past and the“present” in general let alone game releases and obviously I do have to play the game first before I review but that’s not too much of a problem as with new games I buy the game then immediately play it (usually) and whenever I go back and replay a game singleplayer or otherwise the review usually comes after it. Also “review” I probably not the right word to use for these things my “spiel” refers to my“take” or “opinion” on the game and what it means to me, instead of catering to all crowds and giving a score out of 10 at the end, saying that I do try to write the blog to be intelligible to people who don’t usually play computer or video games (or at least the ones I do)hence the large amount of hyperlinks(heh heh) but for the most part there is a lot of gamer lingo in there and I apologies for anyone finding it difficult to both read both my prose and the technobabble mixed together.

But anyway, time for more relevant words to today’s topic though I do need to give a bit of backstory on my whole EA Battlefield experience to make things a bit more clear for my actual review.

Well I’m going to say it, I’ve always been a staunch supporter of EA/DICE’s Battlefieldseries, at least that’s where I stand, it’s kind of a gaming version of the old Australian Holden vs Ford car rivalry, of course one could argue that they’re both different games despite the initial similarities though I still don’t see why you would buy both.

Lego: experience it your own way

This series I can say has a special place in my heart kind of like Lego has a special place in the hearts of children, It provides a service to me as my preferred kind of multiplayer FPS as Lego provides a service for keeping children (and adults) entertained. It also provides me with many different experiences of the one medium, this game gives the FPS genre a much broader feel then the likes of Counterstrike Sourceand the older FPS such as Quake II provides, it allows me to play the game in one way and when I get bored of playing that particular style I can continue with a different style of play. And thus is Battlefield, the game of which I have enjoyed ever since the likes of Battlefield 1942that has graced my screen to this day and as my good friend Brok power has pointed out numerous times Codename Eagle that has come before it. Battlefield 3 is the latest one to come out and is the successor to Battlefield 2 which in turn was the successor to Battlefield 1942. I never played 1942 much online it was more of a LAN game for me (as was Battlefield Vietnamand Desert Combat) only more recently since I had purchased the complete pack for a bargain price I had a small go on the 3FL server Brok had recommended and played on consistently which I even had a go of myself and I got to say it was pretty fun, previously I had only played singleplayer with bots, which is also fun but does get a bit lonely after a while. Battlefield 2 however has been my most online played FPS, I really didn’t have a problem with it, it was a good enough replacement for Vietcong which was one of the first games I played online and the first one where I was serious, serious as in I was in a clan as was online at specific times in order to play for “wars” against other clans, Vietcong was a great game in a way that it had a great multiplayer and a great singleplayer which is a great achievement for an FPS.

Vietcong: a most classic and one of my favorite FPS

Battlefield 2 however did have its differences from Vietcong, for one Battlefield 2 was set in present day using modern weapons, and it had (depending on the map size i.e. 16/32/64 player) a vast amount of area to move around in and that’s just one of the reasons I liked about it another was the different sides and classes you could go, classes were a big thing in all of my FPS playing and it is one of the reasons I never liked Counterstrike Sourcethat much. What I mean by this is that a side is what army you are playing as, whether it be the US or Russia or some kind of Middle Eastern Army (MEC, PLR) and your class is what role you are taking, whether it be basic assault, medic, sniper, engineer etc and what made it great was that all armies have different weapons to each and all classes had different weapons as well. BF2 also had vehicles, and lots of them which included jeeps, APC’s, tanks, choppers, jets and more, along with the vast expanse that was most levels this was a great combination. I played Battlefield 2 online for lack of a better word (or two) a lot, it had next to no singleplayer aspect but this didn’t matter, you played BF2 multiplayer online and that’s all that happened it had ranks and weapon unlocks and was kept alive by expansions and booster packs such as Special Forces, Euro Force and Armored fury. I played a small amount of clanning and warring. And it was good, it worked well, it played well with a few minor quirks here and there and I enjoyed it.

Battlefield 2: Simple and effective

Of course I could go on to Battlefield 3 right here but except the Battlefield saga kept going, I for one did not play Battlefield 2142 much at all (I think I played the demo for about 10 minutes) though sometimes I wish I had cause it looked kind of fun. After Battlefield 2 my main FPS of play was Battlefield Bad Company 2 (this is an odd title I know and there were a few more Battlefield games between this but I didn’t play them so look to the video above) Anyway this is where I noticed things had changed which were:

• It had a Singleplayer story-driven mode
• It was limited to only 32 players
• There was now less classes and they had changed their loadout and abilities
• You were no longer able to play as the Commander.
• There was no Airstrike, Vehicle drop or Minimap UAV (this was replaced by a remote-controlled helicopter and possibly the support mortar)
• The maps were smaller so there was somewhat less vehicles altogether
• There was no prone ability
• You could no longer use the Laser guided missile in the Jet or the TV-guided missile in the Attack Chopper

I did know this type of thing would happen as I had skipped over a few battlefield games since BF2 and yes there were some good things namely better graphics for one and new unlockables. But I casually brushed some of these changes aside as I always had this idea that the Bad Company series was largely singleplayer focused and was EA/DICE’s attempt at a singleplayer Battlefield experience which by my opinion, worked. I only played the second Bad Company game but I enjoyed the fast paced storyline for the most part. Recently I was talking with a friend regarding Battlefield 2 and he made an interesting statement regarding the series saying that: Battlefield 2 was all the pieces laid out, the whole modern-day combat product with all of the features (well mostly) and they have taken bits away, added bits on, meshed pieces together and generally changed things around. Regardless I was a bit taken back by these changes whether they were permanent or not.

Then came Battlefield 3, I wasn’t really expecting it until I decided to get Bad Company as an upgrade for BF2 I naively thought it was the sequel to BF2 but obviously this was incorrect. So I basically was not expecting anything when it came out and it was only through the encouragement of friends both to play with and write my review that I purchased it not too long ago for a bargain price of $57.00 I might add at a certain non-commercial gaming shop in Elizabeth st. And I will start with the Singleplayer.

Running, following, hoping you don't get shot, usual exciting day

I’ve never really expected a singleplayer in Battlefield, that was largely the territory of other games of roughly the same field, such as Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, Day of Defeat maybe?. 1942 had only a sort of play through all the maps in a half-historical re-enactment of World War 2. Battlefield 2 had no singleplayer campaign at all apart from the semi-useless 16 player bot mode which I think was bettered in later patches but I never bothered to check. Bad Company was the first one largely based on a singleplayer experience, a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare style of singleplayer mode to be precise and Battlefield 3’s singleplayer mode is no different. I hate to complain about this but I have never liked this style of singleplayer storymode, my favorite singeplayer experience of all was not in the Half-life series as some might think, but in Vietcong. Vietcong had a great storyline, you were the same person the whole time a new sergeant going into a new base during the Vietnam war, you had your office and quarters where you could read your diary, previous mission reports and many other documents you also had a firing range you could go to and pick any weapon you had unlocked or picked up to test out and take on the next mission and there was almost always a meeting in the briefing room which was heaps of fun to watch before you went out on your mission and on several occasions you could walk around the whole base.

Ahh, trademark army banter

 There is none of these things in the BF3 singleplayer it revolves around a story where you are blipped flashback-style into the minds of several different people and do various army related things which all revolve around the one storyline, there is no home base, no office or quarters, no picking your weapon, no briefing just a harsh awakening and a boot in the head (sometimes literally it seems with the shaky camera) to get your fun-filled action-packed mission-face on soldier. But don’t get me wrong I’m not saying this isn’t fun filled experience, it is fun, but coupled with the features I had previously described would have made the entire experience all that more fun(er) and possibly (ier) and also last a bit longer, maybe I just wanted to see what happened, but usually with things this action packed it is over relatively quickly. Vietcong had that kind of slow paced walking through the jungle ambush style of play which added a great deal of atmosphere and suspense and anyone who has seen movies such as Platoon and then watched Black Hawk Down

Platoon: stealth, jungle and suspense

Black Hawk Down: action-o-rama

Maybe it’s my fascination of being in an expansive online world that I like that attracts me to games that have it (Battlefield as an FPS example, WoW as an MMO example and Test Drive Unlimited as a racing example) except this isn’t exactly the same type of interaction that a typical MMO would give (well, at least when it’s not player vs player enabled), in this environment there’s danger around every corner, literally a corner could be a shield or a barrier from being spotted by a prowling tank (or “lumbering” whatever a tank does) and obvious difference being that pretty much every living thing you interact with is either a friend or an enemy, there are no civilians here, although I sometimes wish there were. I’ve always wondered what games like the Battlefield series would be like with civilians around like you usually see in news reports and documentaries, where you not only have to check your fire for friendly units but for civilians running around as well. I have played the entire singleplayer campaign now and ran through totally deserted streets apart from the scripted events of when enemies suddenly appear and you mow them down. Of course there are certain reasons why I thought there are no civilians in most FPS games:

• You could shoot them for fun like the cold blooded murderer you are :D
• You could use them as human shields
• They could be distracting
• They use up extra graphical and processor power

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, however took civilians to a new extreme as you can see below:

I have not played Modern Warfare 2, but seeing this like this makes me think that the Battlefield 3 singleplayer could have been much more entertaining, of course Patrick Bach, Executive Producer of Battlefield 3 had this to say. To be honest, I don't want to be slaughtering masses of civilians in fact I don't even want the intention to, I just want them to be there, walking, running, screaming, hiding doing what you usually do when a gunfight breaks out, to give you the challenge of distinguishing whether they are a threat or not.

Anyway on to the multiplayer front and as if this post hasn’t been long enough already I’ve got a bit to say, once purchasing the game I was quite eager to see what this momentous release was like, what they’d changed and what was new, and the first surprise was how the installer scared the hell out of me. When you install Battlefield 3 for the PC you have to install this thing called Origin which is basically a new version of the Electronic Arts downloader, and "downloader" being the key word as when you actually activate your product you have to actually press the button to “download” it after this it proceeds to download the game saying it’s going to use 11gig of your bandwidth even if you have the DVD in the drive. However, the difference being is that if you started the origin installation process with the DVD in the drive it would say it’s“downloading” but you notice that it’s going way too fast and there’s no net activity because it is “downloading” off the DVD, but if you started the origin “download” process with no DVD it actually would download the whole 11gig. Well gee that’s not confusing at all is it?

I rarely complain about game company ‘requirements for play’ but this is just ridiculous and dangerous especially for people (like me) with fairly small internet bandwidth caps. But anyway I got the game installed from the DVD thankfully and found that the BF3 main menu system is run from your web browser, which is a very interesting change that I have not seen before, but it works ok and is fine with me, having a look at the multiplayer games available I do enjoy having a large amount of server filter options which work well. I found the in-game interface easy enough to manage, the new player spawning system is pretty good the way you can spawn directly into vehicles, but does take some getting used to.

BF3 spawn screen: fancy but not too complicated

 Now for the classes, this is probably going to sound like a rant from me because I have always been a huge fan of class-based FPS as unlike the FPS of old you could do something which made you different from the other person, it gave you a role to fill that no-one else could i.e. Medic can heal, Sniper has long range capability and the nuances that balanced them out i.e Medic could provide health and revive but their weapons were weaker, Snipers had long range weapons but in close range could only defend with a pistol, Engineers and Anti-tanks were slower and equipped with SMG’s or Shotguns but packed more firepower with other weapons and with either a boon or bane to vehicles and Assault were basically the all-round class. To be honest I had no problem with the 7 class system that BF2 had, all of them had their own special way of playing and their own toys. But as I mentioned earlier in the post this had changed in BF2142and then slightly changed again in Bad Company, this wasn’t too bad I guess they had merged the Spec Ops and Sniper classes naming them‘recon’ resulting in Snipers having C4 and being able to unlock a Spec Ops style Carbine, they had also merged the Engineer with Anti tank so you were able to unlock and choose either rocket launchers or anti tank mines to use. These two changes I tolerated but then it kinda got weird, they had given the support light machine gun to the medic and given the ammo resupply bag to the assault class so there was no more support class which was kind of strange cause I always had thought of assault as the main non-support class.

BF2 spawn screen: Seeing this made me happy even before playing.

 And so in BF3 I look at the classes and find that the Assault and Medic classes have now been combined, so in theory there was no assault anymore and the Medic class I had always gone and loved was now the only choice for a base assault class, as the Support was back to normal having the LMG again and the ammo bag. I just found it annoying that this had happened cause now my identity as a support class was skewed I have sort of decided to either go Assault (Medic), Support or Engineer depending on what my squad needs, but this is made more difficult because of the fact that both the Medic and Support classes are both displayed as the same icon in the deploy screen.

Battlefield 3 classes: more gear more specializations, more unlockables, better?

Furthermore to my ranting I’d also like to point out that I do not approve of the new minimap, I mean compared to what people say about it I can see things fine in its neon glowingness, the thing that annoys me is the new way you can zoom in and out. The minimap in both BF2 and BC2 had two modes one was where it was in a corner of your screen and it showed your immediate area, the other was when you pushed the button to enlarge the map (mine was capslock) and it automatically showed the whole map. In BF3 the minimap is controlled through the N and M buttons, one to enlarge the map the other to zoom the map if I so desire. When starting play the minimap displays your immediate area as usual but when I press the button to enlarge the minimap it comes up with an enlarged version of my immediate area, I don’t want this, I don’t think anyone would, what I want is when I press the enlarge map button I want to see the whole map I don’t want to have to press N, N, M just to see the whole damn map. People have told me that they don’t really use the large minimap or even that they don’t need the minimap altogether as you just “know where to go” but I for one use the minimap a lot especially when seeing spotted enemies around me and also just when I want to check out which areas of the battlefield I should go, of course I don’t know whether someone has brought out a fix already or this is going to be changed in a later patch.

Oh great an enlarged version of my immediate area, not my cup of tea

 Planes are back, fill her up please!

 With the aircraft there are now jets in the game again, but after having played the singleplayer mission being a Jet gunner and having lots of fun with the ground attack toys I was mildly disappointed that apparently you cannot be a jet gunner in multiplayer, with used to one of my favorite things to do in BF2 although only being able to use the one hard-to-use laser guided missile, it was very satisfying when used properly and speaking of which they have also taken out the popular TV-guided missile from the attack copper (sigh). Speaking of aircraft though I am now quite elated as I mentioned before you could auto-spawn into the choppers and one of my favorite things to do as an engineer was to sit in the chopper as a passenger with my repair tool out and repair the chopper when needed, it’s quite humorous as people get frustrated as to why they can’t destroy it and also helps because the choppers (especially the transport ones) are easily shot down.

But apart from those things not too much had changed that mattered greatly to me, sure the graphics are better but Battlefield 2 though in its entirety was perfect for me (well that is after all the bugs and glitches were sorted out) it replaced Vietcong as my main multiplayer game for a great length of time until I eventually discovered the greats of MMORPGS with the infamous Lineage 2 and then WoW which ultimately became one of the reasons I don’t play FPS heavily or in clans anymore, the other being the repetitiveness FPS play i.e. run around get shot, spawn again repeat, next map repeat though I’m not going to get into that whole argument that’s just one of the reasons. As I read one employee of DICE saying that it’s very hard to tweak a game when doing so means that you may change or take a minimal feature a single or group of users know and love and I can agree with that, it’s always what I think whenever something is changed in a game sequel or patch, instead of complaining about it, just think about the person who has to make these decisions. Battlefield 3 in its entirety is fun to play, even if it’s missing or changed a few things that I did enjoy myself with and I hope the series continues to be great as the ones I’ve played have been my best experience of multiplayer FPS gaming, it allows people who are not the best at running and shooting to excel and have fun in other ways and allows so many different aspects of play to specialize yourself in.

Battlefield 2002-2011, No matter which side of the war you’re on, long live the veteran.

JD

I may have died but I was different to everyone else, well at least I tried to be

Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, off-road fun and frustration

Well good day (or night) to all all of you out there I just wanted to clear things up before I get into this week's review, these reviews that I do are of games I have recently played, which could be anything from any platform it could be Battlefield Bad Company 2 one week and Spyro the Dragon the next. The games I review are mostly new though I am currently deciding whether to review games that I'm going back to re-play. I'll also be adding some extra info to the top of the post to give you an idea of what I played it on (PC/Console), when it was released, who made it etc. 

Exclusively on: PlayStation 3
Genre: Racing
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Evolution Studios
Screenshots from IGN.com

Motion Blur!

Indeed yes Motorstorm: Pacific Rift is an offroad racing game and is the sequel to the PlayStation 3 launch title Motorstorm  which was set in the real-life Monument Valley. I would have considered buying the first one as I had wanted it for awhile and it was relatively cheap now, but when I realised that it had no splitscreen multiplayer at all then that was the end of it. Pacific Rift  is set inside the pacific ocean, no just kidding it is set as you would expect on a fictional remote pacific island with everything a remote pacific island has to offer, beaches, forests, mud, water, waterfalls, mountains, active volcanoes and lava in other words not quite a very safe environment for a race. The "plot" of Motorstorm: Pacific Rift much like the last game is the Motorstorm Festival where you enter different race and compete with cpu players for points, these races can either be Normal Race, Eliminator (every 15 seconds last placed vehicle will be eliminated) or Speed (single vehicle slalom through a pre-determined course). There is also a few factors that each race can have whether it be finish in the allotted time or a wreck limit where you can only completely fuff it 3 times both for extra points. A good feature that I like is that each race you are restricted to a single or up to 4 types of vehicles per race, making things interesting where one race I had to go the off-road bike only to find that every other cpu opponent was a monster truck.

Hmm traffic's bad today

The selection of vehicles is plentiful ranging from small: Bikes, ATV's, Buggies, medium: Rally Cars, Racing Trucks, Mudpluggers and big: Big Rigs, Monster Trucks. All have their strengths and weaknesses, terrain handling, speed, maneuverability etc and it often takes some though as to what would be best for the situation. Most of the time there's a variety of different vehicles in the race at once but the game tends to keep the size scale even, though sometimes you find yourself on a bike or ATV then end up mercilessly pounded into the dirt by a big rig or monster truck. There's a good amount of customization as you can choose between different models and paintjobs of each vehicle as well as different drivers. The vehicles handle reasonably well there's a bit of mid-air rotation to help set yourself up for the landing but and some vehicles are quite hard to turn any kind of corner which is sharper then 45 degrees and often you have to do a powerslide to face yourself in the right direction then use the boost button to catch up but it's all in learning I suppose.

Ironic that the track their about to race is not at all suited to trucks

The tracks and environments is where the game really shines, the singleplayer game is divided into 4 zones Earth, Air, Fire and Water each with it's own tracks based around that theme. I really enjoyed this feature and each zone did live up to it's name, you can be in a buggy zooming through mud in dense jungle or flying through the sky on an ATV after jumping off a mountain or working out how you're supposed to travel over an active volcano in a semi trailer or maybe even smashing through a river trampling everything in your path with a monster truck. Racing on the tracks themselves needles to say take a bit of getting used to, playing for the first time measures from hectic to insane especially with 12 other kinds of vehicles around you, and often you do find yourself wondering "where the hell am I supposed to go" primarily because of the many different routes each track offers.

Dangerous? of course not, all those insurance forms were just routine

 There's some advice in the game though you should go on the track that best suits your vehicle i.e. motorbikes and ATV's go the high road with lots of jumps and mudpluggers and big rigs stay low on the flat track and power through the mud but this isn't always obvious and many a time I found myself crashing into a rock or a fence or falling off the track and getting respawned because I thought it was another route. I'd like to say these problems can be overcome with 'practice' but it's more often then not trial and error which makes things difficult for casual players or your friends joining in for multiplayer. I have to say though that Pacific Rift has some of the best looking and most exciting tracks I've seen in a racing game, if you can overcome the chaos of the other racers hindering you the track really reward the player for doing it right, landing that jump, activating that boost at the right time, or even taking out that other racer.

oh right, so you can't go that way after all

The multiplayer I would say is where the games really shines, there's nothing more fun than getting some friends together and having a bash with splitscreen, even if you're cruising around with your vast knowledge of what to do with each track and vehicle while their crashing every 10 seconds it's all in good humour. Online is ok if you're up for a challenge, the game isn't exactly a new title but there are still others playing, mostly from the US though, one particular person I was playing with had a voice which resembled a non-robotic "BonziBuddy" or "Sidney" from the Microsoft Speech API 4.0 One of the only things I don't like about the multiplayer is that you can modify the look of your driver and which type and paintjob your selected vehicle has but they can't as the selection of which type and paintjob of the rally car they select is randomized. The main problem I had with playing singleplayer is that it was immensely frustrating, you need to come in the top 3 in order to progress and in a game where there's about 20 different things that can go wrong and you can go from last to first or vice-versa within a matter of seconds you can understand why. I sometimes dreaded playing the game out of fear of what would happen but generally patience and dedication paid off.

Trouble brewing

Fun in a foursome

In conclusion Motorstorm Pacific Rift is a great affordable racing game for you and your friends, the singleplayer can be frustrating at times and the levels can be confusing, but the gameplay, visuals and the experience is worth the effort, and with the online aspect still reasonably active and a healthy amount of extras, unlockables and DLC packs this game is well worth it's cheap price.


This is a fairly long video but it showcases a lot what the game has to offer, I especially like the opening movie

Thas all for now, keep racing and keep your cool heh. And if you're into something slightly more post-apocalyptic Motorstorm: Apocalypse is now availiable.



If this was a real racing event I would be quite the fan.

Alice: Madness Returns, a slightly different foray into old territory

 I have recently completed the rather exquisite Alice: Madness Returns (take note of the semicolon) and to get this out of the way I'm partly annoyed and partly glad it's over.

Though I shouldn't get ahead of myself, this is the second incantation of the the original Alice, both created by American Mcgee, being a fan of the original I had heard that a film adaptation of the game was in the works, which got me quite excited ( for a few years at least as this was announced in 2000) and I'm not going to mention the new Alice in Wonderland film by the venerable Tim Burton which is an entirely different story. Then one day I heard good ol' 'American' had a new game studio and had made a sequel to his original Alice, this made me quite pertubed as I was under the impression that the the original American Mcgee's Alice did not need a sequel as it was meant to be a dark, twisted and abnormal version of the disney film and thats what it was. Having played it through though the ending was acceptable (and predictable enough) but the story of Alice Madness returns does answer a lot if questions certain skeptical types may have, and to be honest the story was one of the only things that kept me going.

Alice in the dark and dreary fictional english town that is her real-world life

  The storyline in Alice Madness returns is very intruiging, it explains what happened after Alice had supposedly rid herself of her inner demons and her path to full realization of the events that led to her families death, this is helped by the 'memories' you find hidden along the way which unlock quotes from various people in Alice's life. I must say that it was actually the scenes in the victorian-era England where Alice now lives that were my favorite to play as it shows what Alice's life is like now, something which you never got to play through in the last game. These short levels show what happens to Alice between the environments in wonderland that Alice goes in and out of and while they don't exactly explain why Alice is in a particular section of Wonderland they still are a welcome addition to the game.

The first level in the game, 'The Vale of Tears', one thing that is obvious as soon as you start is how good the game looks.

Once starting the game and falling into wonderland for the first time it was easy to see that the game had been quite graphically updated with stunning detail for eatch environment that you travel through over the course of the game. These 'environments' change at certain points within the game and I have to say my favorite was the 'Oriental Grove' world which had a great eastern theme to it as well as 'Cardbridge', and the screenshot below speaks for itself, there's still the usual scary places like Queensland and the freaky Dollhouse but I found as in the last game the not-as-scary were the most beautiful to look at. I also found (after finishing the game) that the costume changes Alice goes through when changing worlds actually changes gameplay elements (i.e. the original costume allows to regain health while using the shrink ability) and you could also change the styles of the weapons, which would have been great to know beforehand but anyway.

Cardbridge... something that would a nightmare in the last game but one of my favorite sections in this one.

With the last game the the platform element was quite tricky and because there was quite a large amount of it I ended up getting frustrated and ended up using a flying cheat just so i could finish the game and see what happened, this has been fixed to a major degree by introducing a triple jump and also a floating ability which makes probably the largest aspect of the game quite manageable. In the first Alice weapons were ofen crude and slow and fighting got quite annoying and the changes to this were very welcome, the action is now very smooth and looks spectacular the way the game slows to a crawl for a split second when an enemy strikes almost telling you to use the dodge ability, or when you finish off an enemy and are rewarded with a slow motion blood splatter, the range of weaponry is very satisfying to use with every noise you know that you have oir haven't hit your target, the only thing I can think of is that I now cannot throw the Vorpal blade at my enemies which was my favorite move of the last game, but nevertheless slicing and smashing through enemies quickly has never been more fun.

The Vorpal Blade, still my favorite weapon....

Unfortunately while playing through the game and enjoying the beautiful scenery and the edgy fast paced combat things inevitably started to get repetitive and I found that some chapters lasted forever and I just wanted to see what happens. This happened in the last Alice and I was well aware that it was going to happen again, I felt that some worlds were just too long but I guess having played the last game once I met all of the old characters again and saw the scenery and the new enemies I had little pateince for the rest of the world and just wanted to end it soon, as I said before It was the story that kept me going most of the time the parts where Alice gets pulled back to reality helped quite a bit but at the back of my mind I just wanted to know what happens to Alice in the end primarily because I do have a a lot of sympathy for her having been through two games of a playable version of a young girls mental torture. But unfortunately Alice madness returns has one of the most unsatisfying endings I've ever come across, so I left it half glad that I had finished it and half annoyed at my un-fullfillness.

The "Eat me" cake makes a return

In conclusion I would say that for fans of the original it's a great experience to see an old game re-created with new graphics and better gameplay elements and for newcomers it's a good delve into the twisted mind of American Mcgee's Alice and with the original Alice game included with this one free of charge it's well worth the purchase. As for coming back and playing it again I am afraid to say this game does have quite a big lastability issue, I would have gladly settled for a feature length movie of the last game but something tells me I may be able to have my cake and eat it too.

Well thats all for now, I leave you with the fabulous launch trailer.





Is it me or is Alice incredibly beautiful in this game...

Duke Nukem Forever, I finished it, I had fun, so sue me

Unless the title as you completely wahzingoed yes I did finish DUke Nukem Forever and I had quite a bit of laughs along the way, wther it's his stupid one liners, or the ridiculous riches and in-game popularity that Duke has after previously saving the world 12 years ago Duke Nukem Forever for me had humerous bits and peices everywhere. The overall game isn't really that long and because of this 3D Realms has been able to squeeze in a lot of content including a few different ways to play the game for example there are levels where you are shrunk to a tiny size, use a remote control monster truck and also a full size one, as well as underwater and helicopter parts. Another thing I enjoyed was the way the camera swung around during parts where Duke was wrestling with a flying alien or being surged out of a damn by a raging torrent.

The single greatest title for an Autobiography ever.

Arrgh I am so small and ze rats are so big!, oh wait their normal size

Yes there are the usual half-naked women etc and certain parts of the game are dedicated to just that, there is also a "story line" but it's just your usual "Aliens invade the earth (again), Duke comes in and beats the crap out of everything" The game does really capture the feeling of being Duke and is definately a good throwback to the old days of standing and blasting cowboy style instead of all this cover based shooting business we have today. Some people may complain about only being able to carry two guns and also there are no iron sights but the reason for that comes down to sticking with the original Duke 3D and I don't mind it at all, plus who wants iron sights in a game like this?

In conclusion Duke Nukem  Forever is crazy, over the top and just plain fun.

I have a modesty meter...

Red Dead Redemption, another win for Rockstar, GTA4 revised

Rockstar Games has done it once again for me, this time in the form of a Wild West Style RPG if you can call it that, I spose you can. For those of you who don't know Red Dead Redemption is third person style RPG where you play as John Marsden a Rancher/Cowboy/Bounty hunter who is on a government mission to capture or kill his former gang members and save his family from government clutches and start up his own ranch and goes on an adventure through the Wild US West and also Mexico etc. Being made by Rockstar, you can probably guess this is practically a Wild West version of Grand Theft Auto 4, which with all the main parts ie. big place to roam around, npc's doing random things, side missions, story missons, etc, I think the main difference between the two is the huge amount of untamed landscape teeming with dozens of different kinds of animals/plants places in which you can meet anyone and anything and where certain random events take place (people being chased by wolves, stolen carriage etc) in which you have to decide whats the right (or the wrong whichever you prefer, to do).

What the hell are those damn posts sticking out of the mexican buildings for?

Maybe it's cause I'm playing this on the PS3, or maybe it's because it's set mainly in the wilderness rather then the city, but Red Dead just seems to work, compared to GTA4 which is polished but seems to be awkward. I think the PC is the problem in that regard, I play GTA3 on the PC in order to use a mod called 'simpletrainer' which allows you to do a large amount of fun and useful things which would be unavailable on the PS3 version, that said my brother does have the PS3 version at the moment and I suppose I should have a go of it.sometime. I can't use my PS2 style controller for driving in GTA on the PC so that does have an effect, while running and shooting is much easier with a keyboard and mouse. Maybe whats missing from GTA is the ways you can make money, you do things like skin animals and collect herbs in the field and sell them at the general store.Maybe it's the various costumes you can unlock and wear rather then buying your own clothes in GTA4 or maybe it's the ambient challenges i.e. sharpshooter/hunter/survivalist that are an addition for you to do as well as the basic story missions one major flaw with the game as the outfits you unlock do not carry over between saves, there is one very cool looking outfit which I was only able to obtain pretty much once I'd completed the whole game and was kind of annoyed when I could not use it in a new save.

Scenery is awesome to look at, the world is quite large cause i can't exactly remember where this is.

Red Dead Redemption also has a few multiplayer feature packs and an expansion entitled "The Undead Nightmare" which you can pretty much guess what it's about it introduces zombies to the game and allows you to play through a fictional storyline as John sets out once again this time to find a cure for his family who have turned into zombies, visiting and meeting up with familiar faces along the way, doing the original storyline is an absolute must for this as it won't make much sense if you haven't done it.

Whatever the difference is both are very good and deserve a place on my list of favorite games. I have currently started Red Dead over again and can say that I look forward to going home and playing it each day.

Bears, Boars and Wolves! aaaaargh!
JD

Magicka: Why I never liked it, and now even less

 

A little while ago I was persuaded to  buy and download the action rpg game Magicka  which I was told was a great game and fun to play with friends, but after doing that, and a bit of singleplayer as well I was still relatively unimpressed and found it hard to explain why.

For those of who who don't know about Magicka here's a little idea from the Steam description which has a few videos and pictures

Magicka is a satirical action-adventure game set in a rich fantasy world based on Norse mythology. The player assumes the role of a wizard from a sacred order tasked with stopping an evil sorcerer who has thrown the world into turmoil, his foul creations besieging the forces of good.

Players will be able to combine the elements to cast spells, wreaking havoc and devastation on the minions of darkness. They will also be able to team up with friends and fight their way through the campaign, or test their skills in the magickal arts through other challenging modes.

In Magicka, up to four players take on a grand adventure to save their world from certain doom using a fully dynamic spell system. The adventure mode takes the players across three different levels, ranging from the lush forests of mountain valleys to the frozen halls of the Mountain King where wits and creative thinking are the keys to victory.

Now all this seemed to be well and good but the main problem I had was that we were ALL wizards and we could all do the same thing, I've grown to like the idea of parties or groups where every member is different and can do different things i.e the warrior, the healer, the long rang archer etc it's just disheartening that everyone could do the exact same things as me and always better in some way of course which took out what I feel makes me different, also It just feels so hectic and linear it's what ruined the Spyro series with the introduction of round based combat, go there fight these guys off, go to another place but i guess some games are the same that way. The other thing was you actually know all the spells from the beginning so it's a fairly steep learning curve and you can't sort of play in favor of whats coming.

All in all Magicka is a rather small game and fun in it's own right it's just not my cup of tea. 

That said though there's a new DLC thats kind of lessened my respect for the game even more

 

 

Ah Magicka Vietnam indeed, complete with the Trashmen - Surfin Bird remix, I mean I know this game is satirical but this is just ridiculous in my opinion there's just some genres you don't mix with one another.

I'm a cow, I'm a cow, I'm a Magicow

JD.

Grand Theft Auto 4 Episodes from Liberty City, The Ballad of Gay Tony Skydiving

This is old news but I purchased myself a copy of Episodes from Liberty City which included the two smaller "spinoff" games which are tied to the original GTA4 similar to the "Vice City Stories":The Lost and the Damned & the Ballad of Gay Tony. The Lost and the Damned is about a motorcycle gang which featured in GTA4 where you play as a veteran member of the Gang, it was fun and also quite tame compared to the ludicrousness that is the latter.

In the The Ballad of Gay Tony, you play as Luis Lopez who is an assistant to the nightclub owner Gay Tony which seems that this is also some some small time hoodlum bashing, drug getting, gang fighting fun etc but it soon becomes apparent that TBOGT aims to bring back in all the high flying, terror instigating, action film style antics from the previous installment of GTA San Andreas that was missing from GTA4 I've barely got halfway through the game and already I've shot SWAT police off of the empire state building with an automatic shotgun full of exploding rounds then base jumped off the top, butchered a large group of arms smugglers and hookers and blew up a giant yacht with a hail of machine gun and rocket fire while piloting an armed helicopter, and also shot down a police SWAT tank which was being airlifted by a skycrane, to say this game was action packed just doesn't do it justice.

 But the thing I was most excited about was the re-introduction of parachuting/base jumping which I had always loved from the many games of skydive into the pool from San Andreas and with the addition of multiplayer, this makes it no less exciting.

 

And I... fly through the sky so high... with pie.

JD.