How much should I...?

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine bought a game by the name of Recettear. It is a shop sim/hack and slash game. I was interested by it but didn't get around to playing it. I now hate that friend...

I've been playing the game pretty much since I bought it. It is a very nice break from the stressful highly intensive games that have been coming out lately. It is a nice laid back game that involves more thinking than action a lot of the time.

The aim is to buy low (typically at 50%) and sell high (typically at 130%) and reach a target at the end of each week. This sounds easy enough but each character has a specific buy/sell limit and if you go above or below them they will leave without buying/selling anything.

The other aspect of the game is when you team up with an adventurer and venture into dungeons in order to get items/ingredients to sell. This is a nice break if you get bored of the shop scene. You must fight your way through a variety of randomly generated levels and a variety of enemies each with their own type of attacks. After you defeat the boss on each fifth level you are able to leave the dungeon and return to town.

Overall this is a lovely game to play when you just want to relax for a few hours. I will definitely be playing it for a good long while to come, in between any other titles that come up.

The second Shock of Bio

I feel Bioshock 2 is a major improvement upon the first for several reasons as you start off as a Big Daddy, including attached drill, meaning you are not defenceless from the beginning like you were in the first.

This gives you a feeling of security that makes you want to progress on further, whereas in the first I found because I had no way to defend myself I had no incentive to progress into "darker" or "out of the way" areas.

There is also a morality type system with several choices throughout the game that can affect the outcome of the game. Not in any major way but it does feel like your actions are affecting the universe around you.

The good thing about the game is that it is genuinely scary, there is a constant ominous feeling as you traverse the levels. In the original it was not done in the same way, to its detriment. Due to the fact you were pretty much defenceless, monsters would often pop out of hiding and this was supposed to be scary, whereas it was actually just annoying. It is a lot harder to scare someone in a game when they are wielding a shotgun and the fact that Bioshock 2 does this is rather impressive.

The other part of the game that I didn't try out all that much was the multi-player. I felt that the universe just did not quite suit for a multi-player game (unless it was co-op) and had no interest to play it all that much.

It could be Magic!

A few years ago I used to play a game called Magic The Gathering. It is a collectable trading card game.

There have been several iterations of a Magic The Gathering computer game and each one has been completely unable to live up to the original card game.

I recently played the latest offering, Magic The Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 (a year ahead but we'll allow it). This time I do have to say it was not the worst game I've played in the series. There were a few extra campaign matches that added some nice functionality to the game instead of the standard 'one v one' setup.

In the standard campaign there were Challenges with a predefined condition, hand and deck and you had to figure out how to succeed in the situation, which as the name suggests was challenging.

Archenemy is a 'three v one' layout where the solo player has a special deck of "schemes" that affects the gameplay in a certain way and makes the entire battle rather difficult.

Revenge is pretty much exactly the same as the campaign except it is a lot harder. The opponents' decks contain all the cards you can unlock throughout the campaign and the AI is a lot smarter.

All in all this is the best MTG computer game yet in my opinion but that is not to say it lives up to the card game in any way. You still cannot create a deck from scratch or alter the layouts in any major way. It is very difficult to search your deck for cards as they move really quickly onscreen and there is not really a huge amount of variety in the opponents you face.

If you are looking for a good computer based MTG game this would be your best bet but if you want an amazing next gen game then I'm afraid this is not it.

Not so twirly after all...

Steam recently released a bunch of Free To Play games as well as making Team Fortress 2 Free To Play.

One of the games I tried out was Spiral Knights a very simple and fun hack and slash game.

The premise of the game is that you are a group of Knights called Spiral Knights and your spaceship has crash landed on an alien planet. It is up to you to venture into the depths of the planet and find minerals and materials in order to power your ship and be able to build supplies.

The game is very very simplistic, not to say that is not actually challenging. There are (as far as I have seen) no skills or talents to learn. Instead you have a large range of "levelled" equipment that you can buy or craft, all of which perform the same function but with slightly different special abilities (such as resistance to fire or higher damage). The equipment has a star rating between zero and five, zero being your starter gear and five being the recipes you gain at the lowest levels.

You have the choice of three weapons; a Sword, a Gun and a Bomb. There are also three pieces of armour you can use; Chest, Helmet and Shield. Using any combination of these three weapons you can have a variety of styles with which to fight your way through the levels.

The deeper you travel in the world the tougher the levels and enemies get. You will receive less beneficial drops and it will cost you more energy to travel downwards but the rewards, both monetary and recipe-wise, get better.

The simplicity of the game as well as it being completely Free To Play, immediately makes it worthwhile. I can see myself playing this game for a long time to come.

Muzaks! Eyes Set To Kill

The Post-Hardcore band Eyes set to Kill was formed by twin sisters Alexia and Anissa and their friend and former vocalist Lindsey in '04.

My first impression of the band before I had researched them was very positive as the female singer was able to hold a tune without resorting to the tried and tested growling method (Many female metal singers fall victim to this instead of just using the amazing voices they have.) And the unclean vocalist added the perfect amount of contrast to the song.

After listening to all the albums there isn't a huge amount of variety between the tracks, with a few exceptions. They all have a very similar feel and sound, despite being completely different songs, different lyrics, etc. I know that this does not take away from how great the band is and I still think they are amazing but I know some people would find it to be repetitive and might not be able to hold their attention past a few tracks.

I do have two favourite tracks, the first one I heard was "Broken Frames" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRoY7zAXfcE)
and another one that has a bit of a special meaning for me "Violent Kiss"
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEJAPQy00PE)

I would also like to add that Alexia and Anissa were both nominated for "Hottest chicks in metal" in 2010. They unfortunately lost out to Maria Brink of In This Moment (Though I don't begrudge her the win).

Muzaks! Neuroticfish

Neuroticfish is a solo project from Sascha Mario Klein. It was originally created so he could experiment with some music styles and it would not interfere with his other work.

Neuroticfish was originally brought to my attention by a cover of a song called "They are coming to take me away" (linked here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d0QND_24DE) While I had not previously been a fan or interested in Synthpop/Futurepop the musical stylings of Sascha intrigued me and I started listening to more of his (and similar artists) songs.

The project was officially closed in May of 2008 due to achieving what was required from the project and also due to other commitments but the music is still in wide circulation and well worth a listen if Synthpop/Futurepop is your sort of thing.

Muzaks! The Suicide Machines

I discovered The Suicide Machines from a YouTube channel that I frequently watch, a compilation video was put up and TSM was playing a cover of REM's "Its the end of the world". It was very interesting to hear a punk-rock version of the song and I really liked the style. (I'll link it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3yLtnNF6yM)

Very often covers can sound forced and bad quality but this was very good and remade in a level that suited the music. It was an interesting take on a well known track and immediately peaked my interest.

Having listened to several more tracks they have released in the past I must say I was very impressed. They have that very definite "punk-rock" style across all the tracks and it seems to me that the band had a lot of fun while recording them.

Unfortunately they disbanded in 2006, but in their short reign between '91 and '06 they released six full length albums. They are definitely worth a listen if you enjoy Punk-Rock type music.

The Devil Lives in London?

A game that is overlooked and often spoken ill of is Hellgate: London. It unfortunately fell flat mainly due to the lack of coverage and bad reviews, and the company folded along with the entire multiplayer section of the game.

It is a unique take on a Hack and Slash game as it is an FPS set in the post-apocalyptic future london. You can choose between six different classes, two melee (dual wield and tank) two casters (dps and summoner) and two ranged (gunner and gunner summoner). In my opinion the classes are not particularly varied or unique enough to have warranted so many but despite that they do play fairly differently.

The levels are randomly generated in five or six different environments well populated but all rather similar. The progression is balanced but fairly monotonous. You fight wave after wave of really similar enemies in these environments that after twenty or thirty iterations get rather boring. Unfortunately the game is very grindy, as is the case of most Hack and Slash games.

The saving grace of the game however is the special missions and the boss fights. Each boss is again randomly generated from a selection of powers and enemy types and are a lot tougher than their standard brethren. As you can encounter the bosses in any area it adds some great variety to the areas and an added amount of difficulty that is often needed.

Unfortunately the best part of this game was in fact the multiplayer, it had added special enemies and equipment, the ability to share equipment between characters and several other nice little options that improved the game massively.

One thing that always really bothers me about these type of games is the sense that your character "appears". All the NPCs speak to you as if you don't know what has been going on, you start off the game in some dead-end that leads only forwards and you have no gear to speak of. Is it too much to ask that a non-rpg puts a little back story on your character. Now it isn't just this game I am talking about but all Hack and Slash games.

Now while this might seem like a rather negative review of the game, every single hack and slash carries the same issues, even a great like Diablo suffers from these. I really enjoy playing Hellgate: London and keep coming back to it time and again. It is just as much fun as any other Hack and Slash and also covers an FPS element that makes it enjoyable. The game however is not in wide circulation due to the closure of the company but if you do see it in shops it will be very cheap. My vote; if you like Diablo this one is worth a play through.

Muzaks! Cult of Luna

In a rather strange turn of events my sister, an indie rock lover, contacted me with a band she had heard and thought I might enjoy. She had heard them on (I believe it was) Radio 6 one evening and despite her metal-misgivings thought it sounded good.

Cult of Luna are a post-metal band, Swedish in origin. They have aggressive, deep, guttural vocals on all their tracks. While guttural vocals are not usually my cup of tea, the music compliments them quite well. The instruments used are primarily standard metal style and sound, fairly heavy and giving the feeling of foreboding that a lot of post-metal music inspires. However later tracks are more orchestral in origin using atmospheric sounds to put a deeper feel in to the track, making it a lot less oppressive but still giving a heavy impact.

You can hear several tracks on their myspace page here: http://www.myspace.com/cultofluna
or you can also YouTube them and find a whole lot more of their tracks with some sort of anime or photo slideshow going on in the background.

The Third of the Fables

The original Fable game was a masterful creation. The stylised cartoony look suited the game and environment perfectly. The storyline was somewhat unique for games of that time as it involved quite a lot of tragedy and difficult decisions that could turn out badly. The combat also flowed really well. You could swing your sword knocking back an enemy and immediately throw a fireball to follow it up. There was a huge amount of customisability as well in clothing choice, hairstyles and tattoos. The main hook to Fable 1 was the choices you had to make between good and evil and this was done really well. You had three alignment choices throughout the game; good, evil and neutral. These depended upon what actions you performed (and also on some foods you ate). There were also some very interesting quest chains you could complete, for instance the arena section.

Now in anticipation of another fantastic game I pre-ordered Fable 3. With the pre-order you got some unique weapons and clothing items. My immediate reaction was that the unique cartoony style was gone, it was still fairly stylised but looked more realistic now. This didn't necessarily take away from the game but it was not a welcome change for me at least. The storyline was fairly similar to the original game with the same sort of beginning and end goal, the interim was slightly different however. A lot of the quests were fairly limp and uninteresting and made you travel through many pointless areas as if to draw out the quest as much as it could. Another thing that bothered me was the lack of choice you had, most choices were black and white/good and evil with no sort of middle ground or any way to backtrack on your decision. You were fairly limited in all of your choices and even in your customising there were less options of clothes and tattoos that you could wear. The combat in Fable 3 was a lot less streamlined than the original and I found it very clunky trying to switch between different weapon styles, sticking mostly to the gun, and found I got hit a lot as the dodging system did not work as well as in the original.

Overall I enjoyed the game and feel I got my monies worth out of it but I do not see myself going back and playing it over again as I tend to with Fable 1. It is just too restricted and linear to make me want to redo the entire story.

Who needs Gravity?

Cargo The quest for Gravity is one of the most entertaining games I have played in a long time. It makes no sense what-so-ever and because of that it is just so much fun.

The story goes that Earth was blown apart and all the pieces of Earth are orbiting in the atmosphere, and humankind has changed to what can only be described as "small fat babymen", You are one of the last surviving Humans and must put the Earth back together.

The main aim of the game is to produce "Happiness" which is the currency you use. You use Happiness to buy parts and build contraptions, to bring the pieces of Earth back to the ground and to meet some quest conditions.

It is a really colourful, musical game that doesn't take itself seriously which is the main charm to it. If you can spare €10 and are interested in a fun, fairly short game that will be very entertaining I would advise you to take a look at this one.

The Return Of The Dragons

So I finally got Dragon Age the second and let me start off by saying I really enjoyed this game.

Now that that is out of the way...

DA2 is in no way able to live up to DA1. It should have been a stand alone game and not a sequel, if it had held any other title it would have had no problems and most likely have received much better reviews.

The story, and the way it is told is brilliant (As of writing this I am about halfway through and loving the story and side missions.) and very unique. I quite enjoy the way there are sometimes silly interludes where the storyteller embellishes the actual tale. All of the characters, even ones you can't recruit seem to have well developed backgrounds. Even if it is just an impression of depth, it shows that the creators put a lot of thought into each character as they created them.

The combat seems very reactive, flows very nicely and looks fantastic. That is one thing that has definitely improved since the first game. It used to look very jerky and disjointed, but now the characters do leaps and spins as would be the case were it reality. Mages don't just stand around poking a stick in the vague direction of the enemies but now look like they are actually participating.

The talent trees have changed dramatically, you still get the standard, two-hand, shield, etc talents but now the trees have been broken down quite a lot more and it is harder to specialise in one type of combat. Another thing is that the talents are less interesting, there seem to be less abilities to use actively in combat and more stances or modes.
However there is a very nice addition, in most games you try to make all the characters love you instead of disagreeing with you, but in this instance you get a special ability if they love you or if they hate you. This means you can play the game the way you wish and whatever way it impacts upon the characters you will benefit somehow.

One thing that bothered me about the NPCs though was the distinct lack of customisability. Their talents are pretty much pre-determined as well as their equipment and of course their appearances. Appearance makes sense as they are a defined character, I can also understand the custom equipment as it makes sense for characters to already have their own weapons and armour. However if a game gives you the option to level up a characters abilities it should allow you complete control or have a specific tree that can't be customised.

My one major qualm about the entire game is the voice acting. The main characters all have great voice acting but the background characters have some dreadful acting and accents. For instance the Elves are (all of a sudden) Scottish and Irish, but the voice actors are not Scottish or Irish so a lot of the voices sound really fake.

Aside from this I am really enjoying this game and would advise playing it, but try not to compare it to the original game. You will really enjoy the story and there are some really neat features worth playing for.

Some News and Updates!

While this blog was created in order to talk about games I feel that it is time I update it a little and develop it into something a little more suited to my day-to-day life.

I will be putting in (hopefully) more consistent blogs not only about games but also about bands that I enjoy/discover and also movies or machinima that I've seen.

This will allow me a lot more freedom to keep up a weekly (or more frequent) schedule.

Hopefully you will all find the things on here of some interest and be able to expand your own world view (of music and games) to encompass some of what I love.

I am a Dwarf and I'm digging a hole!

So last week I bought and played a game (Before all the people on youtube reviewed it might I add *sadface*) by the name of Dwarfs?!

It is, I suppose, an RTS game. However you do not have a lot of control over it.
You have a town centre which produces digger dwarves at a regular interval and these diggers start digging randomly, you can also buy warrior dwarves to defend the town or outposts which patrol around the selected building.
The digger dwarves will dig out caves which can contain treasure, minerals, water and lava. Obviously minerals and treausre are a good thing, however lava and water will kill your dwarves and destroy your town. Your job is to stop the lava and water before they reach the town.
While this sounds like a fairly easy job to do, bear in mind the longer the game continues the more and more dwarves there are in your game. It starts off rather easy while you can zoom out and keep an eye on each dwarf easily. But as more and more appear, and as they dig out further from your town the harder it is to watch them.
There are of course several sides/ways to dig out a cave so in order to remove the threat of a cave you have to "solidify" the walls, place a wall and blow up the floor so the lava/water has nowhere to go.
The game contains several modes that all vary quite drastically, so even if you get bored of one mode there are many more to attempt. The modes do contain the same amount of "randomness" though.
If you do not like the lack of control that the game contains then this is most likely not the game for you. I have found that it can be rather frustrating that you can't spot a lot of the trouble before it occurs and pre-emptively stop it but if you do get a good dungeon going the sense of achievement is fantastic.
If you are a fan of unique,fun games then I would suggest giving this game a go, but if you prefer a more structured, rule bound game then maybe give this one a miss.

Vault 101

Fallout 3 is a game set in a post-apocalyptic 50's-esque period. The storyline is that the Cold war broke out and mankind was forced underground into fallout vaults in order to avoid the nuclear blast.

It is an open world, sandbox shooter. You are given a main storyline mission that you can complete immediately or you can completely ignore it while you traverse the wasteland in search of fame and riches.

There is a wide variety of weapons, armour and items that you can scavenge from stashes or enemies (or even from friends) providing you with many different ways to tackle each situation.

The game is very entertaining and interesting and has many ways to deal with every encounter you have but can sometimes lack direction. You can finish a quest and not pick one up and then find yourself wandering around for hours just looking for something to do. (Not to say that you do not find plenty of things all over the entirety of the wasteland but it can all be a little bit aimless with no defined quests to do things.)

As always I played through originally as a stealthy, pistol wielding character. This proved to be rather difficult as pistols don't tend to deal a huge amount of damage and the stealth isn't the greatest stealth system i have ever seen.
My second play through was more successful as i used melee and rifles, providing me with the close combat skill as well as the ability to pick off distant enemies.

The game included a "Decay" system in which weapons, armour etc begin to wear out and you can use several of the same type of weapon to repair them (similar to reality where you would use parts from one to fix another.)

My overall impressions of the game were positive, the world was in general interesting and entertaining, the combat was not clunky or unresponsive (despite being frustrating at times if you haven't repaired anything in a while.), the conversations were somewhat entertaining, and the quests, while some were rather repetitive, they generally felt immersive and entertaining.
If you are interested in RPG games and don't like the medieval/fantasy setting then this is the game for you!

Its got jetpacks!

Ive been playing Dark Void the past while. It is a pretty standard FPS, with a storyline badly tagged on. The game is pretty enjoyable and self explanatory, but unfortunately in their attempt to add a coherent storyline to it, the developers added random conversations, often mid-battle, that sounded very dis-jointed and out of place.
Aside from the bad story telling the game is really enjoyable and one fairly unique feature is of course the jet packs.

When i first started the game i wasn't particularly psyched about the jet packs as i thought it was only adding a bit of vertical movement to the game. Once i got the jet pack i still wasn't very impressed, until it was fully unlocked in the next mission.

Then i was impressed, very impressed.

It opened up a whole new dimension to the game. I spent a long time flying around and trying to keep my bearings fearing that if i flipped upside down i might crash, but this was not the case.

Once i got more accustomed to the controls i realized it didn't matter which direction i was facing or where the ground was as long as i didn't crash into a wall or any other objects.

Unfortunately the game was quite short and didn't fully utilize the potential of the jet packs, but overall was quite exhilarating and enjoyable.

My what big stories you have...

The Path is a game based loosely off of the many variations of the fairytale "Little red riding hood".

There are 7 sisters each with their own short story and background that you start to discover as you play through the game. However the whole point of the game is that it is open to interpretation, it is up to each individual player to decide what they think the story is, or decide how to interpret it.

You choose one of the sisters to play through as and the only thing you are told is "Stay on the Path" However you can freely leave the path at any stage. You can travel along the path for as long as you like (but as far as I am aware you will never reach anywhere)
As soon as you leave the path you can travel anywhere you wish and discover plenty of different objects and locations, some of which are for a specific sister. The more you explore the more you find out about each sister and if you discover specific secret locations you can find a hidden ending to each sister's story.

When I played through this game i found it very intriguing and entertaining. It was a very enjoyable game and can vary in length of time depending on how much you want to explore. I will definitely be giving it another playthrough and if you are interested in mysterious conceptual games i would definitely advise picking this game up.

If I go will you follow (Only if it's at night)

Today I would like to talk about my favourite game of all time. I spent well over two weeks obsessively playing this game.
If you know me you wont need three guesses to know what game I will spend the next few hours foaming at the mouth over.

I will start off by saying that this game was released in a completely unfinished state as so very unfortunately the studio working on it closed down before they could complete it. However they decided that they had spent so much time on it and it was such a unique universe that they would release it "as is" and let everyone play it, the community did what they could to fix it, releasing several patches that fixed a lot of the crashes, visual bugs, added a few features that couldn't be implemented and basically just helped polish an already amazing game.

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines is set in a somewhat fictional America, at night. I say "somewhat" because all of the locations and buildings do actually exist in real life but the characters and main setting (and a couple of plot specific buildings) do not. The game starts with a cutscene of you and another character "getting busy". This all leads into a convoluted storyline involving a lot of running around, fighting toughs, collecting needed objects and other tasks, that fit together nicely, and once you start to figure out all the different sides from each of the faction leaders you begin to understand the entire story (even though there are still a few hidden surprises that no one will see coming). (Bear in mind I am trying not to give any spoilers.)

The gameplay provides you with many different options in how you want to deal with a situation. You can go all out brawler and talk with your fists, seduce everyone to your way of thinking, sneak past any obstacles you may encounter, or several other ways. It provides you with a lot of scope to play the way you want.

There are a couple of issues with the combat system. One being that the entire game is in a third person perspective but as soon as you pull out a gun you are sent to first person, which is rather jarring and even if you set it back to third person it doesn't provide a crosshair to make it more intuitive.
There is also a bit of a problem with blocking attacks. The block button does not "hold" block but rather you have to block at the exact instance you are about to be hit. While I can understand what they were trying to do with this (make it more realistic) it takes away from the combat system quite a bit as it is nearly impossible to gauge when exactly an enemy will strike.
Aside from this though the combat combines RPG, FPS and Hack and Slash elements amazingly well. The RPG elements being that you can "level up" your skill in particular weapons causing you to deal more damage, FPS being where you aim you hit, as well as having kickback and scatter, and the Hack and Slash being the melee side.

Now my favourite part of this game has got to be the character development and voice acting. You meet a whole host of characters while playing through, some you will love straight away (Jeanette i think is top of everyones list) and some you will most likely hate (Mr LaCroix would probably be the one, though i didn't mind him too much). The voice acting for each character (including background characters) is perfect, each voice suits the character absolutely perfectly (although again you sometimes have some glitches that play incorrect lines or incorrect voices) and every line is fully voice acted, there are no silences while text scrolls by, as a lot of newer, more expensive games tend to do nowadays.
Each character is unique and interesting and provides yet another reason for you to be sucked into the game and forget that it is JUST a game.

The music in VTMB also is perfectly suited to the atmosphere and provides a great blend of dark solitary silent nighttime atmosphere with the activity of the nightlife and clubs. Setting the scene brilliantly in each area. There are several songs from actual Metal and Goth bands within the game that were licensed and they also fit in as if they were tailored for it.

All in all Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines is an amazing game that sadly did not get as much attention or coverage as many other lesser games. It is so unfortunate that it was not fully completed as the company had a lot of great ideas that got cut short. I really hope that some developer in the future will take up the mantle of Troika Games and will attempt to finish what they started so long ago.

Radioactivity makes me cry...

Well ive been a bit busy for a while but ive finally gotten down to playing another game, Stalker: Call of Pripyat.
If youve played any of the previous Stalker games you have an idea of the style and storyline. CoP has finally nailed down all those niggly annoying bits and made a very good game. The story in this newest one wasnt very absorbing or intrigueing but it gave enough to cover your reasons for being in the Zone.

Fast-travel, was introduced in Clear Sky a vital element that Shadow of Chernobyl lacked, and im glad to say it is in the game. You need to make contact with other people to initiate it, which deepens the sense of isolation but isnt too inconvenient to make it annoying or game-breaking.

Upgrades have been refined now in that you need to get tools for engineers for the more advanced upgrades but you can still get the more basic ones without hunting for plans as in CS. And unlike the previous games the weapons are more streamlined, eastern weapons mainly use eastern ammo and additions, while western use western, both have drawbacks and benefits and they all suit quite well with the style.

AI has been massively improved, enemies dont spam grenade, cant aim-bot you at any distance and more often than not wont kill you on sight. However they now use flanking, cover and several other tactics to catch you out.

Mutants have been both improved and made easier, which makes for a better mutant. If you encounter a lone mutant you will most likely come out with a few scratches, if you encounter a pack run for your life.

Overall the map size, missions, enemies and general improvement over the previous two makes this a very enjoyable game, with few glitches or problems. As usual in this style of game it takes a while for it to get going at a pace where your comfortable to go out on your own but youll enjoy it once you are past the initial "newb trainer". This is a good game much improved over the previous renditions and while it wont be everyones cup of irradiated tea i would say if you enjoyed Clear Sky or Shadow of Chernobyl at all its well worth a look.

Happy Hunting Stalker.

Lets not even mention the PS2 version...

I decided today i would talk about one of my favourite games of all time.

Baldur's Gate.

This to me is one of the greatest RPGs ever. It works off the old AD&D system and follows the same conventions and is in my opinion the best translation from the pen and paper version to date.

Rather than being a pure "hack and slash" or "press this button to kill" game it involves a large amount of strategy. Some fights are impossible to win (even with the best gear and at the highest level) if you do not micro manage each character and have a defined strategy to beat the enemy and you can often find yourself in a lot of trouble without doing so, whether its a gigantic dragon or a horde of tiny spiders...

As with most RPGs there are several ways to go about the game and hundreds of side quests to compliment the main storyline. There is a massive range of items, armour and weapons that add huge flavour to the gameplay too. You can get some really cool looking sets of armour with good situational stats (such as the dagonslayer set) that you might find yourself giving up "better" gear in order to keep.

The character NPCs that you can recruit all have indepth stories and backgrounds (and quests that relate to them), some more interesting than others. You will find yourself picking some characters over others as you develop favourites amongst them (such as the brain damaged ranger with a miniature giant space hamster or the depressive suicidal half elf mage)

The locations you go through are fairly varied and unique (i mean how unique can a forest be...?) bringing you through cities, forests, mines, deserts, ruins and island villages. As well as several dungeons that aren't just duplicates of one another and have been created individually.

The entire game has been balanced nicely so that you do not have to grind for hours in order to progress through the storyline and even if you do complete the side quests and kill a lot of enemies you will not overpower all the enemies easily.

The storyline in this series is fantastic and there are a lot of twists that you would not expect however there are times where you will think one way but the story makes you go another way (often contrary to what you want) but as the story continues it becomes less of an issue as it is scripted together so well.

I have a couple of issues with the game one being that you are somewhat expected to play in a specific way. If you decide you hate someone and kill them it will usually result in not being able to proceed as every character in a hundred mile radius hates/fears you and will attack on sight.
Another being that some of the characters are somewhat story critical and even if you decide not to bring them along through the game they will pop up as if they were there all along.
My final issue is that a lot of the time some areas cannot be accessed until you complete a certain quest or reach a certain point in the story. In a game called "Baldur's Gate" where Baldur's Gate is the main city in the continent and is on your map at all times you would expect to be able to reach it as soon as you set out...

Despite these hindering issues this is still a fantastic game and i would advise Everyone, not matter what your preferred type of game is, to play it (at least the main storyline) because you will enjoy it.


There Was a PS2 game with the name "Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance" which should have just been called "Pile of Shit Dark Alliance" as it has NOTHING to do with the original title other than being an RPG. It has more in common with Diablo than Baldur's Gate. It barely had a story, terrible controls, no character development of any kind and i would advise never playing it unless you enjoy brain damage...

Spore: Numero Dos

A newly released (in Beta) game by EA and Maxis is called Darkspore.

It has the exact same functionality as the original Spore but this is a lot more of a hack and slash game. The theme is a lot darker and angled for a slightly older audience.

You start off with pre-made heroes that can be completely customized as in the original Spore but they have an Element associated with them. Each element has an element they are strong against but are weak against their own element. You create squads out of your heroes and can create a very dynamic team due to this. The game is aimed more at multiplayer and you can have up to four people on your team in multiplayer each with their own squad of three heroes so each persons choice can impact upon the team in a serious way.

In the campaign you are against creatures known as "Darkspore" again each with an element. They are supposed to have destroyed or invaded your homeworld and you are a cloned/pre-made hero that has to fight to retake the planets they have invaded.

So far im rather impressed by the game (as i was by the original Spore) but they have improved alot of the annoying aspects of the original and created an actual storyline and removed alot of the pointlessly large game map quests (The star map of the universe) however seeing as it is only in beta and alot of the game may yet be changed i cannot say for sure how the game will progress. I have enjoyed what i have played and if done correctly, scaled etc, it may prove to be a very worthwhile game. My main concern for the game is that it is currently charged at €50 which i think may be too steep for people to show any interest in. However the Beta is currently free and worth a play i would advise downloading it and playing over a weekend and gauge your own reaction.

The Crafting of Mines

A game that i have played a lot of lately has been Minecraft.

It is a game that is hard to define as it doesnt really have any specific genre or aim. The main point of the game is to build the world you can imagine.

You start off in a randomly generated world with no tools, no base, no tutorials, nothing. You have to use the world around you to create tools and a base in order to survive the night when the monsters come out.

You can make a whole range of tools, weapons and armour. But in order to make them you have to find the materials in the world.

You start off with wood and dirt as your main tools and then using wooden tools you dig out stone and create stone tools then on to iron, gold and the strongest diamond. There is also the ability to create "circuits" with redstone which can allow some amazing creations to be made.

It is currently (Still) in beta but even if you buy it now you will receive all future updates and it is currently very playable and there are very few bugs that cause issues in the game. During Beta the game costs €15 but will (once released) cost €20. For the amount you will play this game i think the cost is very little and definately very worthwhile.

Going first breaks the game...

I recently bought the game Risk Factions.

It follows the same base rules as classic risk but has some added objectives such as taking over barracks and airfields. This adds an extra element of tactics as it does not involve just destroying the enemy by taking over all their territory.

There are a bunch of rewards you can get in the game that give you a bonus to attacking or defending, bonus troops, etc. It involves doing specific objectives to receive them however and some of these can be very difficult such as "take over 9 territories in one turn".

You can play multiplayer as well as hotseat and have the option to play both classic risk and the new risk factions.

One major problem ive found with the game in general is that the person who goes first gets a rather large benefit. They get to take over territories first and as such reduce their enemies troops for the next turn meaning that the enemy immediately gets a lesser chance to take over territories.

This game (yet again) is only €10, it is a game that you can come back to again and again for both multiplayer and singleplayer. As it is a classic board game that has been brought into the new age i would definately advise picking it up especially for the price being asked. It is very enjoyable and something that you can easily waste 10 minutes playing every now and again.

Stop right there criminal!

As i have been playing a load of old games that either have had saves deleted or that i come back to again and again i was bound to come back to Oblivion at some stage.

First off i will say, No game should have DLC better than the game itself.

Shivering Isles is the best part of Oblivion BY FAR! While i do enjoy the game, the style, etc. There is no way it can compete with the fun, interesting areas and quests that shivering isles provides. There are several very interesting quests such as the daedra quests and faction quests as well as random encounters and occurrences.

That being said, there are several reasons to play on after completing the DLC. If, like me, you are a collector/completionist, there are several houses to buy and armour sets to own, including each city's guard armour set, as well as several factions to gain reputation with.

I usually start off as a sneaky melee or spellcaster character, but in an effort to experience all aspects of the game i decided to play as a heavy armour, ranged character. First of all i noticed that having ranged weapons is a fairly fantastic way to fight as you rarely if ever get hit. Secondly heavy armour means you take almost no damage from any hits you do take.

Due to the fact that i was using no magic or melee it changed the way the game played out for me completely, i ended up finishing quests in completely different ways than i normally would.
For instance one of the quests involved finding a missing mage. The original playthroughs i ran around the house using detect life and other skills and found the mage hiding. The latest playthrough i didnt have any spells to find him with so i ended up asking other mages to help and having to go on a brand new quest.

In summary this is a great game but even someone who loves rpg's and open world games it was a bit of a struggle to continue past some major points in it. If you enjoy open world rpg's this IS a good game and one that you will continue to come back to again and again. If you dont enjoy those type of games then i be rather hesitant to recommend it to you.

Magical in a runeish sorta way...

My recent forays into indie/cheap games has lead me to a lovely replacement for a terrible(y-addictive) game by the name of WoW.

Runes of Magic is a free to play, micro transaction, MMO. It is very similar to wow (as any MMO tends to be) But it is created completely from scratch and does not try to be like wow.

You start off as either a human or an elf (new races will get added with each new expansion they decide to release) and can choose a selection of classes.

These classes can be a very crucial choice as later on in the game you can choose a second class that you want to spec into. You will get specific skills depending on the class combination as well as the general skills of each class. This i think is a very very cool way of making classes unique. You could be a warrior/priest and be able to tank and heal yourself or a mage/warrior and be able to deal immense damage AS WELL as getting the unique class combination skills.

I decided to play as a Rogue/Scout as it allows me to do close combat stealthy style and very good long range attacks and the two classes both rely on one stat as the primary.

As you continue on into the game you find you need to learn professions such as mining, woodcutting and herbology.
You can learn every profession in the game but you can only max out a limited amount of them. Each profession will give you specific benefits at higher levels but you have to choose carefully which benefits you really want before you level them up.

I haven't played enough yet to get to the higher levels but i think i might possibly go with leather working (as i can wear leather) and some sort of magic oriented profession such as alchemy to offset being a purely physical class.

There are some really neat features in the game such as the dual-class system, pvp dungeons, pure solo play, temporary mount rewards very early (as soon as you complete the easy tutorial), a teleport system from pretty much any location but for me the most important feature is the fact that there are no queues. There are over 4 million players registered on the game (and rising) and they decided to provide enough free places for everyone to join without having to queue. This in itself is a fantastic reason to play as most server based games will not give you the instant join ability.

Aside from all this the game does have a few issues, quests can be a bit tedious and ask for a few too many items to be collected etc, some of the later game stuff is apparently not working correctly (yet), and there isn't any way (as far as ive found) to find a specific trainer/location/etc (such as in wow asking the town guards). These are all minor issues and so far can be worked around by the smallest amount of work. (I have suggested implementations on the forums that might help but who knows if they'll be taken into account)

However overall i have had no issues with this game (so far) and have found it very enjoyable, even playing by myself, there are alot of things to do and places to see (and more coming all the time), Having a few friends to play along with would make the experience even better as far as i can see.

I give this game 4 and a half dead Darryl's out of 5! (and sure its free so ya aint gonna lose out anything by trying it!)

Im the God Damn Batman!!

Batman. Where to begin? Batman is badass. He has the perfect mix of self-righteousness, pompousness, wimpy back story and kick-assery to just be the perfect badass good guy.
However having said that i prefer a bunch of the bad guys to him (as i tend to do).

Now onto the game. Arkham Asylum is the perfect setting for the game, it provides plenty of opportunities for Batman's main enemies to be around.

The gameplay is great, despite having a massive amount of backtracking, it works this in quite well. The combat isnt clunky or boring, the stealth isnt black and white and if you mess it up it immediately moves into the combat, a perfect combination.

The gadgets are great fun and more useful than you first think (i spent the majority of the game not upgrading to certain ones and then once i did regretted not having done so earlier) but unfortunately it takes forever to get them all, which creates even more backtracking if your trying to 100% it.

Theres not really much about this game that annoyed or disappointed me. I found the odd time the controls were bothersome (but that may be more down to me than the game) and some events repeated that probably shouldnt have repeated but all in all the game felt balanced, entertaining and changed enough between sequences that it all was very enjoyable.

I would definately recommend this game to Everyone! I will end this by saying this is the only game (other than the Baldur's Gate *EDIT and Deus Ex* series) that i have fully completed and played the life out of.



Im the God Damn Batman!

Shived by a Shank and Shanked by a Shiv

Shank A Streets of Rage esque game. You have dual shanks and a secondary weapon that deals a heavy strike and also a ranged weapon.

It flows quite nicely and even I, someone who is terrible at platform/beat em up type games, am nearly finished.

Some of the controls on the pc are a bit... sticky... Its available on the xbox too and apparently the controls flow even better but so far there have been no issues.

It has a nice cartoony style that allows for the gorey bloody style and the anime-esque jumping style and moves.

Its a great buy for only €10 and i would definately recommend it.

No Saves? No Mercy!!

Well I have decided, seeing as I have no saves from my old games any more, I am going to replay them and put them all up here, as well as any new games that I play. So I should have a good mix of content to put up (and if I don't have any new games it means I will still have content!).

Oil Crisis?

I have been playing Fuel lately, it is a pretty good game.

By "pretty good" I mean its very pretty if repetitive. The gameplay is quite good, standard racer style with a nice free roam feature. The map is massive! Impressively massive, only each area is not different enough to make it amazing.

The game also features a day/night cycle and changing weather effects. You could be driving along a night-time road and a wind could kick up, eventually turning into a tornado. While they are impressive they do not impact upon your game play experience in a negative way and just make the game even prettier.

The cars and bikes are fairly fun and the way you buy them is pretty unique, but it does take time. You need to either complete races or you can drive around the free roam world and collect fuel cannisters. There is a large collection of vehicles that become available for purchase as time goes on. Although saying that I've only used one bike so far, as it is fast, has a good top speed and handles on/off road very well. All the other vehicles I tested out seemed to be not quite as universal as the one bike I use. However it is very fun to drive around in a monster truck

All in all I'm enjoying it and the unique parts and how laid back the game play is keep me playing it. If you are into racing games I'd say give it a go and if not then give the demo a go.

Dragon Age?

Despite the lack of dragons this is an awesome game. The story is really good and I like how they give you a different beginning story depending on your race and such.

As i got into the game it was fairly quickly I picked up a magic weapon, I was quite surprised by this, but as the game went on I was less impressed. It wasn't until about the last stretch that I picked up a magic weapon that was in any way better than the beginner weapon I had gotten. I spent most of the game using standard weapons and armour.

I was a tad disgruntled that there was no class crossing over or dual classing but the classes and sub classes make up for it quite well, I played the majority of the game as a rogue/ranger and eventually chose duelist over assassin late game, only to realize that I had no points to put into any of its skills...

The way the party would resurrect after a battle if some members survived was a very good feature (I appreciate not having to go through a massive battle and gaining a small amount of loot just to have to spend it all on a raise dead spell) and one that often caught me out when relied on it to get me through a battle no problem (thank god for quicksave)

I would say that my favourite part was probably the circle of the magi, in the fade due to the sloth demon. I thoroughly enjoyed that part and actually loaded a save in order to go back and play it again.

One of my least favourite parts was the bridge puzzle, I'm really bad at puzzles like that and spent a good half hour trying to figure it out before I caved and searched online, and then found out that it is much more difficult on PC than on any other platform...

Overall it has a fantastic story, great character depth and background stories. The side missions are very interesting (strangely enough)and the ability to actually talk people out of things rather than having to fight everyone is a fantastic addition.

A couple of bad things about it were the lack of magic weapons and armour, the small number of classes and lack of dual classing and that ONE DAMN bridge puzzle.

I will cut you...

So I started playing Assassin's Creed today. I finished the first level and then began on the first leve- wait what? So it seems the game designers forgot to make anything after the first level so they just re-skinned everything instead. The main downside of the game is just the repetition and every now and again some very stupid AI.

I would say the story is fairly good, not amazing but good, but that is not why you would play the game. The story, to me at least, was just slowing down my actual enjoyment by taking me out of the fun world I got immersed in.

However once you get past the horrendous repetition and annoying cut-scenes, you step into a fantastic world of stealth kills, extortion, free-running and amazing scenery. When you stand atop the highest building you can find and just look out across the scenery you feel like you are actually there.

I found the combat system to be really enjoyable, you can strike and riposte and it flows quite nicely. However this is where the bad AI can sometimes kick in. You can find yourself up against five enemies, all of whom stand back politely while you kill them one at a time...

Other than this Assassin's Creed is a really enjoyable game, not one you would play for extended periods of time however but one that you can waste a couple of hours on and not feel cheated.

Winter-een-mas

Winter-een-mas is a week long holiday celebrating games and gamers. It starts on the 25th of January and runs until the 31st. We are encouraged to play a different genre each day:

Day 1: Action/Adventure.
Day 2: FPS's.
Day 3: Fighting.
Day 4: RTS's.
Day 5: Racing.
Day 6: RPG's.
Day 7: Sports.

I do not have time this year but I am planning on doing this next year (and having a post for each day!)

Good Game to you all and to all a good night.