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| Fight the Hype - Resistance: Fall of Man |
| Tuesday, 26 August 2008 |
 In this feature we will take another look at the games of yesteryear as we attempt to smash those rose tinted glasses and cast off the shackles of hype. For our first feature, Resistance: Fall of Man will be under the spotlight.
With Resistance 2 racing towards us I decided to dip back into the first iteration of the series. First off, I’ll give you a bit of background. Not about the game but how the game and I crossed paths.
The Playstation 3 launched and with it came Resistance. I can’t really remember what I thought of it, needless to say, that fact alone shows just how much an impression it had on me. However fate insisted I get to grips with the game.
And so it was, 3402 miles and a couple of awful in-flight movies later, I find myself more than slightly bored in Dubai airport. I hadn’t slept for a good 20 hours by this point so I did what any sane person would do - I looked for a Starbucks. Having struck insomniac gold I wondered through duty free half dazed, definitely confused and more than a little jacked up on caffeine. I stumble across a PS3 demo booth with none other than Resistance: Fall of Man on show. As my hyperactive twitching abates, I proceed to play.
Now, my first impression of the game has stuck with me. It is brown. Very brown. I can’t escape this fact. Even now I keep expecting a honky-tonk piano to start playing with the occasional intertitle displaying a boot-eating objective to stave off starvation.
The next impression that I remember was that the enemy design was pretty bland, pretty generic. Having played it again recently, I’ve come to appreciate the Chimera a bit more. Okay, they're thick and predictable and if you just add a bit more muscle to their spindly legs, put the forgotten love child of an assault rifle and a chainsaw in their hands, they would look like them lot from Gears of War… except with more eyes... and traffic cones on their backs. That is a bit unfair though as there are other enemies that spice up the mix, my personal favorite being the little worker aliens that shuffle towards with a view to a chunk of your neck. They make crazy grumbling noises when you hit them for that added incentive.
 Brown. Very Brown.
Another thing that sticks out is the ability to strafe faster than a speeding bullet. It’s almost like playing Space Invaders at times. It’s bizarre.
It sounds like I have major problems with this game but really these are quite minor when it comes down to it. I know it should all bug me but it doesn’t because at its core the game is solid fun. I even found that posh woman who narrates the pretty involving, yet uneventful and obvious, story perfect in keeping with the whole “chosen one” complex.
The level design is varied but the outdoor environments are definitely more enjoyable than the indoor corridor-fests. The graphics, although brown, are clean but they lack detail in some parts and so the game feels dated. The controls… well you can reassign them like I did, more games should do this. Finally the inclusion of co-op is great, I’ve always felt it can make any game a lot more enjoyable and Resistance is no exception.
Resistance, as a whole, has aged pretty well but maybe that’s because there is nothing new about it, it is the most vanilla sci-fi shooter around. A solid and fun game, but stuck in the past.
6/10
Labels: Daft, Features, Fight the Hype, Playstation 3, Resistance: Fall of Man
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posted by Daft @ 12:30  |
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| Playstation Home Is Where The Heart Is |
| Monday, 25 August 2008 |
I'll be stepping in this week while Fanning the Flames takes a week off. I’m going to talk about something Sony love reminding us of in regards to the Playstation 3, potential. Home’s potential is massive. Some wonder what benefit it might hold for gaming, others might think it is a novelty. We’ll only really find out what Home will do when it is finally released but for the moment, we can speculate.
What Home does provide is a platform for games to seamlessly integrate themselves into the Playstation experience. We’ve already seen early indications of how Motorstorm: Pacific Rift will work in tandem with Home and it’s nothing mind blowing. It is basically used as a virtual lobby. More potential was seen with Warhawk, with the use of pre-match war rooms for discussing stratagem. Yet again, not amazing but it does appear to at least compliment the game. Overall it lacks imagination on Sony’s part but I doubt that is really the limit of their vision when it comes to Home. I would be surprised if Sony weren't keeping more functionality under wraps, but again, only time will tell.
Another way games work with Home is through offering extra content, from turning Resistance’s levels into 'The Alternate Imperial War Museum' to being able to play a specially made arcade game, for example in the Uncharted hub. We can see the ability to effortlessly offer extra content through this platform. Considering how interactive the medium of games is it is a shame to see bonus content relegated to promotional 'limited edition' packs and the like, which is something Home could rectify.
I’ve mentioned a few known examples so lets casts our minds over to more mainstream casual games. What might we expect from Sony’s fairly diverse and undeniably popular casual titles? These could provide an opportunity to hook the less avid gamers and tune them into Home. Imagine it…
Deep breath,
Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real good time…
As the song kicks off the crowd start cheering. With their applause, a real time ratings system, the player grows in confidence. No longer is the faithful SingStar community restricted to 30-second highlights, live performances, live open mic nights become a reality. If you don’t like the idea of singing in front of a bunch of strangers just book a private room and invite your friends. You could be standing at the front of a crowded room, maybe with the Playstation Eye streaming a live feed of you onto a wall behind your avatar, belting Queen out – Maybe this is what Sony want Home to be.
Don't stop me now I'm having such a good time, I'm having a ball.
Another potentially very exciting area is the part smaller applications could play in Home. Take the newly shown EyePet. Personally I think its implementation of the Playstation Eye is very impressive, but when it comes down to it, EyePet is just a virtual pet and not even a portable one at that. This is where a problem arises, when exactly are you going to decide to play with your EyePet over a PSN game or what ever game you have in the machine? Home integration with the EyePet could help with this problem. You load up Home, preparing to cause some online carnage in Burnout, but just before you leave the house your EyePet, yes wearing a fez and a little red waistcoat, runs up to you begging for attention. Suddenly your interaction through the Playstation Eye with the tiny creature takes on another level; there is now more incentive to play EyePet. Through EyePet the player enters the monkey-cat-thing’s space, Home allows the pet to interact with you on an equal spacing. How far this level of integration goes is up to Sony to decide. Could I take my pet for a walk or have him perch on my shoulder like I captain my own pirate ship? Would it interact with other pets it came across, maybe even having its own pet friends list? If not, why not?
The key for Home is its integration. If games become an invisible gateway to this central hub, so that players simply find themselves flying between Home and a game without hesitation, then Sony will be onto something. If it becomes that easy then what is not to say that the SingStar and Buzz players of the world won't get pulled into Home? It is inevitable that comparisons are going to be made with Second Life but Home already has a massive advantage over it. First of all, as Home comes as a free download for the PS3 the user base will easily outstrip that of Second Life which, as of March 2008, has approximately 13 million accounts – as to how many are active accounts is anyone’s guess, but I doubt it is anything close to that number. Second, Home has a fairly defined infrastructure. There is no need to build a house or get a virtual job of any kind but the customisation is there for those who want it, from what your avatar looks like to the interior to your house. Finally, Home has a purpose; it is there predominantly for games but also for other media. Depending on how far Sony pushes the integration of Home everyone could be using it to varying degrees, either dipping in to pre-game lobbies, or exploring the different game hubs to swinging by the theater with friends to catch the latest movie.
The ball is on Sony’s side of the court. Home could become essential or it could fade away into some kind of sideshow. There is a lot of potential, not to mention a myriad of 'if's, and although we don't have long to wait, Home will take time to develop. This could be living.
Labels: Daft, Features, Home, Playstation 3, PS3, PSN
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| posted by Daft @ 11:30 |
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| Top 10 - Games to keep you sane... |
| Wednesday, 20 August 2008 |
I've taken the liberty of kicking off the 'Top 10' feature with games to take your frustration out on, and generally keep you sane after being stamped on by the boot of life every day. Please feel free to add in the comments any game think deserves to be added to the list.
1. Crackdown
We've all got to the point where we just want to go all Incredible Hulk after being pushed a bit too far. You just want to pick up the desk you're at, hurl it through the wall. Let rip an epic roar, dousing the offending antagonist with saliva, and jump through the ceiling landing a mile or so away on an unsuspecting car with the intention of throwing the closest pedestrian into the rapidly approaching police vehicles.
Okay, that might just be me but Crackdown allows you to do things to this effect – while, I might add, allowing the player to keep the moral high ground. Crackdown is the ultimate in stress relief. None of this 'story' rubbish, no invisible walls or need to reserve ammo.You do what you want and your reward is that you get better at... whatever it is you were doing. If along the way you want to takeout a few mobsters, that's your choice. As long as things are burning, or are about to burn, you're playing the game right. It's more fun than working in a trampoline factory, getting paid by the bounce.
2. Project Gotham Racing
I've been with the PGR series ever since Metropolis Street Racer. "It's not how fast you drive, it's how you drive fast." That's one of the joys of the game; the controls are tight letting you swing your fantastically expensive cars round the narrowest bends with the perfect balance of ease and necessary technique. Also, in the same way X-Box 360 gamers have a Pavlovian response to the sound of an achievement popping up, the sound of 'Kudos' racking up is a heavenly sound, especially when accompanied by tire squealing. If you're lucky enough, or unlucky depending on whether you like these places, to live in one of the in-game cities you'll appreciate the deserted roads...something you'll never see in London. For the ultimate in stress relief, I recommend playing Cat'n'Mouse online. As a racing game, you're meant to race, not collide or put you opponent off in any way. Cat'n'Mouse, however, is about crashing into the other team, and not just that, you are actually meant to bully their weakest car. It sounds brutal... and it is.
3. Burnout: Paradise
You've had a long day at work, you're stuck in traffic on the bus or in your car, you're probably going to get angry, rattled, frustrated - not too unlike a caged animal. It isn't how anyone should end his or her day really, step forward Burnout: Paradise. If PGR was about how you drive fast Burnout:Paradise is basically about how much rampant destruction you can cause while driving fast.
Opponent getting on your nerves? Introduce them to a wall. It's the kind of instantly satisfying justice that you wish you could deal out in real life when say, babies are crying on public transport, or when someone sends you grammatically incorrect texts to save time. Burning rubber, high speeds, twisted metal, solid walls; it's the ingredients for one hell of a time. Remember kids, speed doesn't kill you, it's the sudden lack of it, that's the real killer.
4. Eledees
No one likes living in a messy house but it is undeniably fun making a mess. Eledees gives you a gravity gun and doesn't care much for the whole cleaning up thing. With the use of the WiiMote your job is to smash things around the place looking for little critters to trap and enslave, giving you more power to throw around bigger things. It's a wonderful cycle of destruction and mayhem. Combine that with the little screams of fear that the Eledees emit while you hunt them down, and you can be your own little family friendly dictator.
5. SingStar
Not much to point out here. Scream as loud as you can and pretend you can actually sing, don't worry, you can't. Then get rated on how you did by the most generous and easy to trick scoring ever conceived. Might not sound like much fun but it is. If that still doesn't sound appealing, something you can apply to life as a whole to vastly improve it, just as alcohol.
6. Earth Defence Force 2017
"EDF!! EDF!!", music to my ears. Earth Defence Force is a thing of beauty. It knows it is rubbish, you know it is rubbish - I know it is absolute rubbish. However unlike most games, that is half of the fun. In the same kind of way as Crackdown, mass killing equals bigger mass killing. The more you play, the more health you get, the bigger weapons you are rewarded with. You'll be pretty pleased when you get the Tortoise, a slow moving, homing tactical nuke. You'll be even more pleased when you find out that later on you'll get weapons that make the Tortoise look like a pea-shooter.
There really is nothing like seeing the horizon of a ruined Tokyo city at sun down fill up with giant ants as you fire off your Prominence MA. As you turn to face the next wave, and your missile crashes into the alien hordes, you won't fail to smile at the ants' death screams and their lifeless corpses as they blot out the sun. Play this in co-op and prepare to lose hours to it. I dare you not to smile.
7. Tori-Emaki
Okay, so a theme that might be emerging here is that violence means stress relief (Yes, I'm including the abuse of music in SingStar) so I thought I would have a bit of variation and that comes in the form of Tori-Emaki. Tori-Emaki isn't really a game though. It's more of a Playstation Eye based flash game. By imitating a Thunderbird puppet on an LSD induced trip you can manoeuvre a flock of crows around a traditional Japanese wood block print style landscape, accompanied with suitably breezy and relaxing music. It sounds stupid but don't underestimate the power of acting like at total inbred moron.
8. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition
A game where you can suplex a zombie, making it's head explode. Where you can cap someone in the knees and then round-house kick them in the face. A game where one of the bad guys is an evil midget. It has everything.
9. Assassin's Creed
Love it or hate it - I don't care. There's no better way to utilise your pent up frustration than becoming a 12th century parkour enabled assassin stalking the holy land. One of the key reasons there is so much enjoyment to get out of the game is because Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, or Altaïr for short, has a real physical presence within the game world. If a beggar woman is annoying you, "Please sir, can I have some money?", don't settle for what you'd do in most other games and just kill her, do the humane thing, chuck her down some stairs and watch her roll. If that sound bite, "No you don't understand, I have nothing!", is really getting on your nerves and you have a brick wall at hand, smack her into it before she can shriek her last syllable. Just before people get up in arms about me being sexist, you can apply exactly the same method to the lepers - it's just they don't annoy me as much by repeating the same ear shattering sound bite at me for the nth time.
Swords and hordes are also on the menu as the enemy guards will actively stand by as you slaughter them one by one. It's a pretty rhythmic fighting system which I think suits the game. You can't beat the feeling when your sword connects perfectly and are rewarded with a bloody neck exploding execution.
Now picking the final game has caused me a few problems. Do I go with Portal and the energy contained within its gameplay, Mario Galaxy where I can bound planets or a thousand other different games that should really get a mention? Like I said earlier, feel free to tell me in the comments of games you would add to the list.
Finally, my number 10 goes to...
10. Super Stardust HD
I love this game. I loved it when it first came up and I loved it even more when trophy support was added. A game that fits in that wonderful bracket of easy to learn, difficult to master. I'll try and get my lyrical waxing out of the way quickly. The game looks phenomenal in all its 1080p glory. There is so much going on that certain tasks, like surviving for 7 minutes without dying in Endless Mode, are incredibly daunting but the game is so easy to get into, and so inviting to learn, that most will find it a joy to attempt such challenges.
There were two things that convinced me to put SSHD in my list. First, setting off nukes, sending a shock wave around the planet ripping to pieces anything in it comes into contact with, is awesome. Second, my experience of trying to get the 'Late Boomer' trophy. For this trophy you try and recoup 15 bombs on a rapidly busier planet where your only form of defense is swift dodging and bombs, the latter of which you really need to hold onto if you want the trophy. I managed to get 14 bombs and then those masochistic red triangles of death started to land and I though I was about to be annihilated again. I manage to swerve out the way for about 10 seconds missing rocks by only a pixel's width. Desperation sets in, my heart is pumping. Suddenly I see the supply ship carrying two bombs halfway across the planet. I boost. I detonate. As two magic bomb tokens hover in infinity, so close yet so far, the universe is coming for me. The massive gold asteroids want me, the myriad of rocky debris want me and the red triangles of death are coming for me, building in number. In blind hope I swoop. 13. 14. 15.
I've done it.
Shock, joy, relief. I've f*cking done it.
As the Trophy message acknowledges my achievement, I am blinked out of existence by the force of the universe. And that, dear readers, is the last time I will ever play the 'Bomber' mode on SSHD.
There we have it, 10 games to keep you sane.Labels: Console, Daft, Playstation 3, Top 10, Wii, Xbox 360
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| posted by Daft @ 09:30 |
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| Lowdown on the Download - PSN Update - 14/8/08 |
| Thursday, 14 August 2008 |
Time for this weeks PSN update.
PS3 store
Game
Sheep (PS1 Classic) - £3.49
Driver (PS1 Classic) - £3.49
Demo
Facebreaker - FREE
Monster Madness - FREE
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 - FREE
Packs
Nascar 09 - Car Skin Pack 1 - £1.99
Nascar 09 - Car Skin Pack 2 - £1.99
Nascar 09 - Car Skin Pack 3 - £1.99
Nascar 09 - Montreal - £2.99
Videos
E3 - In conversation with Shuhei Yoshida - FREE
Fatal Inertia Ex Trailer 1 - FREE
PC store
Game
Sheep (PS one Classic) - £3.49
Driver (PS one Classic) - £3.49
Videos
Buzz!™: Master Quiz Trailer - FREE
In Game
Nucleus Updated Full Game file - £4.99
Nucleus Updated In-game upgrade file - £4.99
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We get a couple of solid demos, I'll be trying out Monster Madness, but as usual there is nothing to write home about. Sony have promised us The Last Guy and Ratchet and Clank for this month so I'm not going to show my rage.
There is an interview with Shuhei Yoshida from E3. If you don't know who Shuhei Yoshida is, thank you google, he is Phil Harrison's successor (No, I didn't have to google him). It might be interesting, but somehow I doubt it.
Actually I lied before, I am going to show my rage. Lets just log into the American PSN for a second. After my eyes adjust to the divine light of PSN nirvana where there is new content aplenty and the store is organised, nay, easy to navigate, I stumble across Bionic Commando: Rearmed ($9.99) and Street Fighter Alpha ($4.99). So Europe isn't deemed good enough for either of these titles... or 1942: Joint Strike from last week... or any kind of a hint at a Resistance 2 Beta... fantastic. I normally have a go at SCEE, because it's more fun to think that they are bumbling morons who entertain themselves by rolling corks across the floor while singing the lyrics to 'Hit me Baby One More Time' backwards in a ritualistic bid to keep the flying monkeys away, but in actual fact it is Sony Computer Entertainment, Incorporated's fault for not forcing studios to submit global submissions like Microsoft does. Bad Sony!!
Also this week sees the introduction, by SCEE, of a brand new feature that will revolutionise gaming as we know it and bring an end to world hunger, yes people, items will now be viewable in an A-Z order.
Mr Trill, Sony's European Community Manager writes:
In support of our continued improvements to the PlayStation ® Store we will be implementing a Search By A-Z category within the Store. Featuring within our store update this Thursday the 14th August, the All Games section will now include sections sorting our game content into A-Z listings by letter. Therefore, if you’re looking for a specific game, demo or game add-on content by name, you can use this handy new feature to speed up your search.
Still no demo section I see...
Labels: Daft, Features, Lowdown on the Download, Playstation 3, PSN, SCEE
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| posted by Daft @ 13:40 |
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| Fanning the Flames; Little Big Mario |
| Sunday, 10 August 2008 |
  Nintendo have been held in high regard for so many modern innovations in today's modern gaming climate. There is a little sub genre currently being created in Guildford, England that the Japanese gaming giants should have thought of long ago...Welcome to world of Little Big Mario.
Nintendo are undoubtedly the King when it comes to 2D platformers. Whilst it would be pointless to deny that there have been other great 2D games down the years few can match the long term consistency of the Mario's adventures. It's a genre that Nintendo created, but arguably they are close to losing their crown to the guys over at Media Molecule who have created the much critically praised Little Big Planet.
You cannot help but look at Little Big Planet and think it should be a Nintendo product. The Sackboy characters are as cute as kittens as well as being a merchandiser's dream. The Nintendo like appeal doesn't end there though. The levels we have seen from the single player (that needs to be unlocked to access different materials), have all so far proven to have the type of tight level design one would expect from teams such as Nintendo. Media Molecule have had to come with this all on their own though and whilst yes there are levels and mechanics that bear resemble to common platform stables there can be little doubt that there is mountains of originality tucked away. Nintendo have so many titles just in the platforming genre to draw on and use, imagine being able to draw on all the mechanics and power ups and different level designs from the Mario games of yesteryear. Being able to draw on such a rich heritage is something only really open to Nintendo as a developer.
 With such a wealth of titles, each with their own gameplay ideas, the possibilities are endless.
Along with the great level design, variety of play and fantastic mechanics demonstrated in the pre-made levels of Little Big Planet there is of course the innovative level designer where Nintendo have seemingly dropped the ball. Popit is the system used to create levels, it used to drag, drop and plonk stuff into your levels with such ease you can chuck together working levels with reckless abandon. There is no scripting or coding to be done, it is all done in game either alone or brilliantly cooperatively with other players. The Popit system is just crying out for the unique control inputs of the Wii and DS, pointer and touch screen, respectively. It looks easy to use and intuitive.
So that's why it feels like it should be a Nintendo product. Let's look at the reason why it isn't. It's not like Nintendo haven't ever included level editors in their games. Wrecking Crew had a level editor that unfortunately didn't allow for its levels to be saved outside of Japan owing to it originally being developed for the Famicom Data Recorder. Even the recent Mario VS Donkey Kong handheld series is helped by the inclusion of a level editor. However there is a theme here, why has no mainstream Super Mario Bros game contained a level editor?
It's simple Nintendo want to protect themselves, why bother giving users the opportunity to develop levels themselves when you can instead drip feed them iteration after iteration. New Super Mario Bros has sold a phenomenal amount of copies and is selling in its millions, over two years after it was originally released. Why would Nintendo want to potentially harm these sales when they release a inevitable New Super Mario Bros 2 hits the shelves? It is a shame as going on Youtube reveals plenty of imaginative people illegally using ROMS to make their own versions and twists on levels as well as totally unique efforts. Nintendo has always taken a tough stance against piracy and ROMS etc...what better incentive to give would be game designers to invest in a product that offers them more tools to play with than they will ever find by other means
Ultimately Nintendo has missed stepping up to the line with this feature as Media Molecule looks set to win critical praise for their innovative and supremely well designed 2D level editing platforming adventure.
 Just one of many possibilties.
It is not just in level editing and user generated content that Little Big Planet trounces Nintendo. Character Customisation is another buzz bullet point used to sell games, its something Nintendo has experimented with in Animal Crossing and more recently with the Mii Channel. However there is this over riding feeling that it just isn't enough. A Character Creator rich in options is always going to popular just look at the recent Soul Calibur IV to see the efforts people will take to make their favourite characters from other franchises. Nintendo have only made limited forays into this area the Mii system whilst fun to use is limited and has had no updates since the Wii's launch. The Sackboy's of Little Big Planet can however be customised till your hearts content with tons of custom options, including specific items from other franchise. Nintendo have dabbled in this with Animal Crossing, but the fact that the new City Folks Wii version only offers colour changing of sleeves as an extra option shows their lack of drive to offer true customizing.
Nintendo unfortunately seem to a company who despite their huge market lead and the success of both Wii and DS are missing one opportunity after another. You have to wonder quite how many more times they can miss stuff and still stay at the top. If we are to look at E3 briefly there were numerous examples of this. With WiiMotion Plus came the unveiling of the impressive looking Wii Sports Resort, yet this kind of peripheral is very much something the hardcore want the chance to finally replicate true 1:1 motion, so where was the hardcore game that will use it?
The moral of this first Fanning the Flames then? Nintendo you have the lead don't go blow it by shafting the hardcore, you can't rely on the casual to constantly keep the pouring in the money in that Nintendo Loyalists have down the years. Give them something that truly resembles true fan service and innovates at the same time. It's not all bad though we did after all have the stellar Super Mario Galaxy last year that showed Nintendo still have that magic.Labels: Fanning The Flames, Features, Playstation 3, PS3, Wii
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| posted by flameboy @ 15:39 |
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| Review: Hail to the Chimp |
| Thursday, 24 July 2008 |
It would be easy to dismiss Hail to the Chimp at nothing more than just another party game. If you were to do that you would miss out on some of the funniest presidential banter you are ever likely to see in a game.
It is of course worth bearing in mind very few other video games have ever aimed in delivering this particular brand of comedy. Satire is the comedic flavour being used with the colourful animals providing witty remarks and a walrus doing his best impression of Ron Burgundy prsenting the news on GRR News. The news reels and advertisements throughout the game provide the political flavoured laughs and do in fact cover a very extensive range of issues. However you will find yourself occasionally groaning at some of the more terrible and cheesy jokes. It could be argued that Hail to the Chimp has few highlights as game bar this humourous look at the USA's election system.
The game uses a very unique and funky art style with a paper grain effect used in abundance. Each character is bright and vibrant and can have a variety of accessories plastered on them to make them look truly garish. The levels fit in with this ton using bright colours and sharp contrasts to make areas stand out, it can still be hard to keep a track of things.
Despite earlier saying this game should not be dismissed as just another party game, unfortunately the gameplay does fall into the genre's stereotypes. All of the games humorous content is delivered outside of the actual game which means it is largely devoid of laughs. To simply sum it up, the game suffers from very shallow gameplay and simplistic mechanics.
 There are a choice of different stages each with their own unique twists as you would expect, all of the games different modes can also be played on each of these stages. All of the varying types of games don't be differ too much to be honest and it actually three other candidates collecting clams which represent votes, there are different game types but they only vary in the way which the game collates the clams into votes. This can be handy if you are better at dashing and grabbing clams for the ballot for example, than keeping hold of the most clams for 2 minutes. It could be seen as a way of representing the multi-faceted of the presidential election system and can be used to tactically try and win your favourite stages, demonstrating how not every state has to be won. Clams can be acquired by simply running into them and picking them up as they appear on the stage, or more aggresively fight for them. It is shame however that the combat mechanics descend into button mashing. This gives little risk-reward balance to fight as it feels so random and unfair, coupled with it feeling boring, only helps to add to the games full repetitive structure.
The game offers little variety in multiplayer just giving you chance to play each of the battles with friends instead of the AI. The computer controlled characters deserve a mention if only for how extremely unbalanced they are. They either kick your ass, beating you into submission or you do exactly the same and serve that up to them. There is no such thing as a close battle at the AI seems either too easy or too hard. So with this in mind it is hard to recommend this game if you are only going to play it solo and without mates!
Whilst the game is indeed funny there is little to keep you coming back once all the jokes have been seen and this happens far too quickly. Some of the jokes do stand up to repeat viewings but not the vast majority and they in fact start to grate and it become increasingly frustrating. It's a problem the game as a whole suffers as there is simply not enough to keep your attention. It would have perhaps benefited from being a cheaper downloadable title to make up for its shortcomings, instead its a budget price disc game that is barely worth it and suffers from severe longevity problems.
Labels: Playstation 3, Reviews, Xbox 360
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| posted by flameboy @ 16:13 |
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