Catherine

The game follows the tale of Vincent, a man who feels pressured and put upon by his girlfriend Katherine (note the K) as she wants to move their relationship further on and talks to him about marriage and children. Frightened by this he ends up cheating on her with the titular Catherine who is every part the opposite of Katherine; blonde, carefree and up for fun as Katherine as dark haired, stern and always concerned with the future.

During the daytime and the character segments of the game, it’s fairly linear and although there’s not a lot to do, it’s engaging and very interesting. Using a mixture of game engine and animated sequences, the story coasts along on rails, and although you can talk to Vincent’s friends and other customers in local bar the Stray Sheep, you cannot directly affect what Vincent’s course of action is. The choices he makes in the story are based on the position of a bar that indicates either Law or Chaos. Changing the bar is done via the puzzle game.

Each night when Vincent goes to bed, he finds himself in a nightmare world populated by sheep that are reflections of many of the people you meet in the daytime. They are all being put through trials and forced to climb a block puzzle tower for their lives. If they die in the dream, they die in real life, which is reflected in the story sections with news reports of mysterious deaths. When you reach a plateau you are given a question before you can proceed. The questions are simple yes or no affair, but are all moral quandaries, the result of which will change the position of the Law/Chaos bar.

The block puzzles themselves are at first fairly simple, but very quickly get much more difficult as the types of block increase to include spike traps, ice blocks and blocks that move of their own accord amongst others. You decide your own path up the tower by shifting the blocks around, which sounds easy in principle, but in practice, is far from it. Each of the plateau sections include someone who’ll discuss techniques with you, which are very useful, but difficult to remember as there are so many. They make sense and are very clever, but it’s up to you to remember which method to apply and when.

Each of the puzzle segments has a final section which sees Vincent being chased by his inner thoughts and fears given a nightmarish physical form. Some of these are actually quite unnerving, but if you’re fast enough you’ll be leaving them far behind and won’t see them for long. The game is touted as a horror, but truthfully there’s not a lot of horror in it except for these abominations.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I cheated a few times while playing the puzzle game. Some of the situations are so mind bogglingly difficult I defy anyone not to consult Youtube for a path up the tower at least once. And that’s on Normal mode. Strangely, I didn’t see that as a drawback, but more a testament to the draw of the game. I always wanted to get through all the puzzles and persevered even when frustrated to the point of almost quitting as I was hooked by the unfolding story and wanted to know what fate awaited Vincent.

I won’t spoil any of it, but I will tell you there are 8 endings all depending on the position of the Law/Chaos bar. I chose to answer the questions based on what I personally would do rather than what I thought Vincent would or should do. It made the game much more personal as I wanted to see what my own actions would result in.

You’ll be pleased to know I was a good guy and got the “True Lover” ending. With careful save management you can see as many as 4 of the endings without repeating the whole game, but to see all 8 you’ll need to play through it at least 3 times. This does mean I’m going to have to play it again being a complete and total bastard, which oddly I find a little displeasing as I got quite involved in the game and will actually feel bad about being nasty to the people I should be nice to. To have a game leave me thinking like that should tell you how involving the story is.

Is this your Catherine?

Or is this your Katherine?

There is more life in the game too with a couple of modes which allow you to replay the regular puzzle sections in an offline co-op mode, plus a challenge tower which is different every time you play. You can go back to these as many times as you like, plus the story progression puzzle sections are scored depending on your performance giving you reason to challenge the game again on a new play through instead of dropping to the very easy difficulty just to see a new version of the story.

Catherine is literally a game of two halves. The story is great, the puzzles are infuriating, but it does make for a unique whole. I’d recommend it to gamers who want to play something that’s considerably different from the norm. If your game collection is made up entirely of Battlefield of Duty, or you have no patience, this isn’t for you. But if you’re a grown up and open to all new experiences, please do give it a go.

Check out the trailer on Youtube

 Earlier this week, CEO Ian Shepherd told senior staff that the retail group that owns GAME and GameStation, has just two weeks to save itself

GAME have been denying that anything is wrong, although with limited stock and employees rumoured to have received late wages, it’s looking like the end is looming for the UK entertainment giants.  The chain recently announced 35 store closures and that it is going to shut sister website gameplay.co.uk. 

GAME had apparently received lender support to alleviate financial troubles following concern by publisher EA, but earlier this week it was also speculated that a significant investor had pulled out of the company.  The high street retailer’s shares plummeted by 90% in 2011, despite £1 billion in annual turnover.

With the launch of the PS Vita at the end of February, this should have seen massive sales for the stores, but unless you had pre-order it, you were unlikely to be able to walk in and buy one.  Some customers had claimed that stores had also stopped taking pre-orders for game releases and that, when the shops re-stocked, it was so limited that there were none left on the day of release.

One of GAME’s major attractions has been it’s large stock of pre-owned titles, which in some stores actually out-size the number of new and chart title games.  Naturally there is great convenience in trading-in for store credit towards other games and consoles, or being able to put the money on GAME’s in-store credit card for later use.  However, if GAME were to suddenly cease trading, would customers who use this store credit service lose all their savings?  Would our gift cards become useless?  GAME also offer an insurance service for consoles purchases as well.

Supposedly the company has massive debts to publishers such as Nintendo, but an announcement by GAME last week explained that they’d made an agreement with their lenders that would hopefully see them lasting until the end of the year.

Game CEO Ian Shephard has expressed his concerns that the consumer economy probably wouldn’t turn around soon, however he has made it clear that there is a clear vision for the company that seems to have the support of its investors.

And what will happen to GameStation, which is another one of the bigger alternative entertainment stores on the UK high street, as they were bought out by GAME in 2007?  Perhaps we should expect a rise in the independant and smaller game shops, and in the mean time make the best use of any “fire-sale” discounts that the chain announces…

UbiSoft confirms setting for Assassin’s Creed III

Cue Anthrax playing "Indians" - Waaaaar Daaaaaance!!!

As the end looms ever nearer, here’s what I got up to on day 3.

Sunday 18th
Day 3 began with another round off the superbly brilliant Battlefield 3, we then made a list of some of the titles that we’d like to cover on our final day, and the following is the ones we managed to cover.

Mass Effect 3
As this was a relatively small demo for what will be such a big game it’s hard for me to comment too much on this game but I will do my best anyway.
In my opinion graphically it wasn’t much different from number 2 but still looked very crisp and polished, the control system is also identical to number 2 (why fix something if it isn’t broken).
Unfortunately there was no usage of Kinect on display so I’m unable to comment on how that looked and worked.
The pace of the game did appear to be slightly quicker yet again, and the fire fights were again even more epic and intense. Just from playing this small section of game you can tell the story is going to be equally as epic as before and will be the perfect end to a trilogy.
One other this I noticed is that the environment did appear to be more destructible, making the player think more about their usage of cover and how they go about entering a fire fight, all of this combined just shows how Mass Effect is once again going to show why it is the king of 3rd person RPG’s.

Forza 4

As some people may know, Forza 3 is the only racing game that I have played that I have actually enjoyed, so waiting in line for this one my anticipation levels were high, and boy was I not disappointed.

Just your casual sunday afternoon drive

The cars were stunning, the track was stunning, the scenery was stunning, and this game was stunning! The way the sun reflected off the roof of your car as you came round the mountain made my jaw drop to the floor (and crash into the side destroying my engine) but this was not a bad thing as it allowed me to take in the breath-taking scenery of this game even more.
As well as looking great the cars also handled great, both with a pad and with the new wireless wheel that was on show, which just added to the stunning nature of this game.
Unfortunately there was no Kinect capability on show so the garage was not on show, which was a shame, even though I don’t have a Kinect at home I still wanted to try out the garage and look around the insides of the cars.
The team behind Forza have clearly picked up where they left off and have again created a superbly brilliant racing simulator which I will again be picking up.

Uncharted 3 MP
Now as a big fan of the previous Uncharted games I was a tad sceptical going into this demo because I generally find that any game that has a heavy single player focus and then suddenly go into multiplayer it generally turns out a bit lacklustre.
I am pleased to say that this was not the case with Uncharted 3. The multiplayer was great fun, the gun fights were intense, and the intensity was added to by the chase of an enemy across rooftops before dropping down on them and blowing them away with your RPG.

Has anyone seen my plane?

Visually this game was good. It didn’t look too different from among Among thieves Thieves but still looked great. The visuals got really gritty when the sandstorm hit in the middle of a round which made vision really hard but again added to the intensity of the game seeing shadows running around in the storm trying to work out they were friend or foe because the team indicators went away during that time.
Before the game we had a chance to look through the menus and found the vast amount of character customisation that will be available to the player in the full game.
To summarise Uncharted 3 is going to be a great game. The multiplayer could probably still do with a bit of work but from what I played it’s full of promise and the potential to rival Assassins Creed on the PS3.
……….

And there we have it that concludes my time ate GAMEfest, there were a few titles that I was unable to see which was a shame but did not take away from the awesome time that I had over the weekend.
All in all GAME put on a fantastic weekend for their first attempt at a games convention and I loved every minute of it. I played some great games, met some awesome people, ate far too much subway, and knackered myself out beyond belief, but with all that said I would do it all again tomorrow.

Bring on GAMEfest 2012!

Author: ll DirtyJim ll

The following is a round up of all the action from day 2 including the appearance of a special guest

Saturday 17^th

Day 2 of GAMEfest was every bit of awesome as the previous day, and every bit as tiring. This was the day that I also met up with our very own Krazelist (who was taller than I had imagined) and spent the majority of the day walking round with him and playing a few titles that we wanted to see.  My day however did not start off with Krazelist though.  It instead started at the Assassins Creed: Revelations booth for a bit of MP action

Assassins Creed: Revelations MP

Before I start with this I would just like to point out that I never really played too much MP on brotherhood so if what I say is wrong and incorrect then I do apologise in advance.

Ezio v.3 this time with beard

The multiplayer for this game has pretty much picked up where brotherhood left off; it felt the same as before in that you were either a seeker or a hider (the seeking team scores points for killing their targets and the hider’s scores points for evading their killers).

Visually this was a great game and I had the same opinion as I did with the MP from brotherhood in that I wasn’t overly impressed (again this is probably due to my lack of playing brotherhood multiplayer) however that being said I could definitely see the fun in this mode and the potential it has to be one of the most unique multiplayer experiences of all time.

From playing the demo I have already decided that I will make some effort in to playing the multiplayer for the game when it is released as the demo had a great thrill to it when playing on either side, whether it be running from your hunter over rooftops before jumping down to find a suitable hiding place to then sneak up on them and disable them, or if it’s the other way round and chasing down your target before jumping down off a rooftop and assassinating them where they stand, the multiplayer is full of promise and I can’t wait to play more.

I also had the chance to see a brief 10 minute single player video and the game looks great, Ezio looks BAD ASS in his more mature days, and the section shown had good usage of different camera types which will allow for a more interesting game.  After watching the video I walked out thinking it was just like all the previous AC games, and I know I have used this already a couple of times but that to me is not a bad thing as this game looks fantastic and will be a sure fire hit.

There were a couple of new things in the demo, the first thing was the new range of kills that are at Ezio’s disposal and some of them are horrific!  Secondly they introduced bomb making into the game which they have said there is somewhere in the region of 500-600 different bomb types to create.

This game is one to keep an eye on because it will be great.

Asuras Wrath

Well what can I say about this title?  Another one that going into it I didn’t really know much about, but after playing it all I can say is that CAPCOM may have outdone themselves with this one.

Acupuncture never felt so good

This game is superb, the pace of the gameplay was so fast that at times I had to try and take a step back to see what was going on as there was so much happening at once.

The demo on display was one of the games boss battles and it was HUGE.  It took place over 5 parts, each as fast paced as the previous and seamlessly linked by a stunningly beautiful cut scene.  In total the demo probably lasted for about 30 minutes.

Visually this game was gorgeous and the two different animation types between gameplay and cut scene linked together so seamlessly that you barely noticed the transition. Just this small segment of the game you can already tell that it will have an epic story told by the equally epic cut scenes and it will feature multiple epic boss battles.

This game was by far the most enjoyable game I played over the weekend and probably had some of the best visuals I have ever seen in a game. Another title I cannot wait for.

Goldeneye

Unfortunately I was unable to enjoy this due to the poor quality of demo that was on display.  Every corner I turned I bumped into a different glitch and thankfully I wasn’t the only person experiencing them.

This game needs and incredible amount of work, visually it was weak, the game itself was quite poor however did show signs of potential providing Activision buckle down and get things into gear and sort this game out.

…………….

After playing Goldeneye I went for another go on Halo: CE HD (mainly because I wanted a re-match with my mate) and whilst waiting in line I was approached by none other than Krazelist.  The following are the titles that we went and seen and played on.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier MP

The first thing I noticed with this game was how much the visuals had been improved, there were some great additions to the game in waypoint and objective markers were placed up in the sky indicating places of interest (i.e spawn points, grid zones) which allowed for easy movement around the map

Are you sure this is the right guy?

The menu system I found easy to use (mainly because I spent the majority of this demo respawning) of which I will be blaming the lack of team work from my team and not my lack of skill (obviously).

The only new feature that was really put on show in the multiplayer demo was the AR drone which is an incredibly useful tool that can be used to spot enemies for your team mates to see and take down.  From what I could tell there was no time limit for usage of this feature it was just a case of use it until its spotted and shot down, so this can be used to the advantage of a well worked team to control a match quite comfortably.

Of the classes available in the demo it would appear that the assault class was the most popular among players as it had been levelled to level 16 whereas the next highest was the recon class had only been put to level 5 not sure what that’s got to say about this game or if it was just the demo level but players were clearly preferring up close fire fights.

I also got to see a single player demo for the campaign and from watching the video you can instantly tell that this will be a hit not only in single player but by also playing this in co-op.

Did you say something?

There was a few things demonstrated in the demo which will add to both styles of play, the first of which was the ‘syncro shot’ where if you have a group of 4 enemies you can each sight one up and fire at the same time to take them all out silently and quickly. They have also added the ability for players to tag enemies for them to be shown on everyone’s mini map or for AI to take out to allow you to run to cover safely.

The AI in this game I feel will play a big part both in ghost team and also the villagers and pedestrians this was shown in the panic that was caused when they opened fire on some enemies in a village it caused a panic which made it harder for them to eliminate the enemies effectively.

Along with all of this the demo also shown the fantastic use of lighting and sound which just added to the already amazing atmosphere created in the game.

Street fighter X Tekken

Now being the CAPCOM side of this new franchise, the visuals of this game are typical of that which can be expected of a Street Fighter title. Vibrant colours and unique fight stages along with the typically hard control system which resulted in a lot of button bashing (from my end anyway). Needless to say Krazelist handed my ass to me on a plate in each game that we played.

This is what it's like when worlds collide!

The pace of this game was incredible, the fighting was so fast and furious that even with the hard control system the game was still very enjoyable and coupled with the music for each stage just added to the enjoyment.

After each fight the stage changed to another section by the fighters jumping down to another part of the fight stage which would change the scenery and add to the atmosphere by making each round feel different.

In my opinion this will probably be the fighter that everyone else has to aim for and beat because the way this is shaping up it will beat off all competition in 2012.

Soul Calibur 5

After playing SFxT the difference in game was noticed immediately in multiple ways, the visual style of this game is the complete opposite in that it uses dark colours and the fight stages are very moody and were clearly created with that kind of atmosphere in mind.

The pace for me did feel a bit slow, however the gameplay and controls was definitely easier to get along with.

There were some nice editions to it from number 4 in the form of a special counter for each character to unleash their own individual special moves which will leave you with next to no health left even with a full health bar.

My only concern for this game is will it compete with the likes of Street Fighter X Tekken and Tekken Tag 2, and from what I played I don’t think it will and we may see this game unfortunately crash out in round one.

As day 2 came to an end I said my goodbyes to Krazelist (did I mention he is a great guy) who went off to find his friends to start the long journey home and I then went off to find my mates for our short journey to the hotel and there ended day 2.

Author: ll DirtyJim ll

GAMEfest 2011 kicked off in style on Friday 16th September 2011 and ended in equally spectacular style on Sunday 18th September. It was full of thrills, giveaways and more swag than any one man could carry, and of course……GIRLS, GIRLS and more GIRLS!

However that is not what you want to hear about so the following is a rundown of my time there and the games I played and saw, followed by my opinions of them.

Friday 16th

Friday started at 10am to the sounds of hundreds of footsteps charging towards the Modern Warfare 3 booth (of which I was not one of them). I instead started my day with the mighty Battlefield 3.

Battlefield 3

Now I think the best way to start this is with one simple word…….WOW! The Frostbite 2 engine is phenomenal, the game sounds superb and plays like a dream. Graphically this game is stunning. It looked very clean and crisp on the screen, I dare say it but it looked almost perfect.

Hope there's no snipers about!

The demo we got to play was a 15 minute game of rush Rush and the difference I felt in the game was immediate, not only because I was playing it on a ps3 so was not used to the controller or control differences, but because the pace of the game was a lot quicker than Bad Company 2 and the atmosphere created was intense. There were bullets flying everywhere and bits of cover being blown off from all over the place, it really did give you the feeling that nowhere on the battlefield was safe.
The guns made an incredible noise (I felt lethal playing the game) and that sound was only equalled to the sound of bullets bouncing off stone and metal, whilst I cowered in cover waiting for it to feel safe to poke my head around the corner to return fire with an explosive blast of fire that rattled my ear drums as I laid waste to the enemies trying to plant explosives on the M-COM station. The animation has been not only improved but added to, in that now upon approaching an obstacle rather than pressing ‘A’ to jump over you now vault over to keep the fluid motion going plus, you can also press the right stick whilst running to slide into and hide behind cover.
This game was by far the best game I played that weekend and I just can’t wait for October 28th.

Halo: Combat Evolved HD

The demo showcased for this was a 10 minute free for all 8 player slayer game on ‘Battle Creek’. The only notable difference on this map was the addition of two teleports at each end of the map allowing you to quickly teleport behind everyone and get the drop on them. The gameplay is you typical halo experience, no real change in the controls or the feel of the game (however they did keep the silent kill option from reach).
Graphically as you would expect from a game using the Reach engine its hugely improved, but it still has that Halo: CE charm to it that you had seen 10 years ago when you first played the game on the original Xbox, so even with the improved graphics after time you don’t notice it because it just felt like the game had always looked that way. I stopped thinking of it as a re-release and started thinking about it as the original game.
In my opinion I feel that this re-release has done the original justice and fans of the series will embrace it with open arms as they once again get to grips with this masterpiece of a game.

Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure

Now despite the title this game isn’t actually centred on Spyro the dragon. He is just one of 32 characters that the player will eventually get to play with.

Trigger Happy

The demo showcased was a small piece of single player/co-op action, now the one thing that amazed me with this game is that it is the first fully cross platform game. The way it achieves this is that only single player campaign data is saved to the console, all character data is saved on a chip at the base of the figurines that are used with the game.

The way the figurines work is that they are placed on to what was referred to as the ‘power portal’ this is a device that is plugged in to the console via USB and it allows for the player to simply take their figurine from their portal and put it onto another portal regardless of what platform it is attached to and that character is instantly transported into the game at the same level they were on your console. Now all this comes at a price. I believe RRP for the game was £59.99 but with that you get the portal, game and 3 figurines:
• Spyro
• Trigger happy
• Gill grunt

Each of these characters has their own elemental type which will be required to complete the game, there are 8 elemental types in total and additional figurines can be purchased at a later date. I can’t remember the exact price but I believe they said they were £5-£7.

Now obviously as you can already tell this is one for the collectors among you and it is also one for the kids. Whilst playing the demo I heard at least 20 families fall in love with the game and make a pre-order (so this is almost a guarantee to be a big seller at Christmas) however even though its clearly aimed at kids I thoroughly enjoyed it and can’t wait to see more on it in the weeks to come.

TLOZ: Skyward Sword

Now there isn’t really much I can say for this game. Graphically it didn’t look any better than the previous Zelda outing on the Wii, the controls were the same, and music was typical of a Zelda game. I guess what I’m trying to say is this just felt like your typical Zelda game. Is this a bad thing? Of course not!
This game still had plenty of the challenge that you’d expect. Epic dungeons, the puzzles in the demo made you think, the mini boss battle was tough and took me a couple attempts to defeat it. This game is possibly the only reason I would consider getting a Wii again (however due to the girlfriend having one there is no need) and is going to be a sure fire hit for Nintendo.

Mario Kart 7 3D

Again nothing much to say on this one as it was you standard Mario Kart game, which again is far from a bad thing. It was thoroughly enjoyable and the additions of your karts transforming into a sub and glider were a great.
Graphically it has obviously improved from the last outing on a DS and the 3D wasn’t too disorientating so it didn’t make you feel too ill when playing it.
Again another sure fire hit for Nintendo!

Dark souls

I went into this demo not really knowing too much about the game other than it had been dubbed ‘the hardest console game EVER’ and after playing the game I could see why it’s been called that. The boss battle was epic. You fought a HUGE stone gargoyle and half way through the battle a second one (clearly bored of watching the other fight you) decides to join in, which considering you’re on a rooftop doesn’t make the already hard battle any easier.
Visually this game is great, the lighting effects are beautiful, and you are made to feel that you actually are exploring a dark, wet, cold dungeon. This game has got plenty of potential and if you’re a hard core action/adventure hack n’ slash RPG fan then this will be one for you

Anyone there?

There however were a couple of downsides to this game, the controls did feel very slow at times which kind of ruined the fluidity of the fighting, the camera angles as well at times were not great and as a result ended up in me getting swamped by 4 enemies that then proceeded to butcher me silly.
That being said they are just a couple if in my eyes ‘minor’ tweaks that need not take away from what could be a great game full of challenge.

Modern Warfare 3

In contrast to Battlefield 3 I can only really use one word to describe this game…… Disappointing! Visually this game was no different to Black Ops, played no differently to Black Ops and sounded no differently to Black Ops. At times I actually felt like I was playing Black Ops.
I have to say that I feel Activision is pushing this whole call of duty franchise too far now and they are finally starting to crack. This is shown in MW3 by the way that it just felt a bit too arcade like when playing the spec ops mode that was playable.

Is 3 really the magic number?

I also had the chance to see a couple of the single player levels played in a 20 minute presentation and again I have to say I wasn’t blown away by it. At some points I did think “Yeah, that’s cool” but for the vast majority all I could think was how weak in comparison to BF3 it looked and it just seemed somewhat lazy by Activision. This is a shame because up until now I have been a fan of the CoD franchise.
In my honest opinion I think EA have the edge this year with Battlefield but unfortunately I don’t think the right game will win the crown because Activision are going to be saved only by the fan base for this franchise alone (this was shown by the 4 hour wait by midday on every day of GAMEfest).

Author: ll DirtyJim ll

With the advent of Cloud computing and improvements in home networking and broadband, OnLive are out to redefine gaming technology by streaming your gaming to your TV. In case you’re unfamiliar with the Cloud, it refers to moving processing or storage off to the Internet. Why spend £3500+ for a massive server when you can pay a host to do all your processing for you? It saves time, money and moves maintenance off to somewhere else. Closer to home, why spend loads of cash of terrabytes of hard drive space to store all your tunes, pictures and videos when you can chuck them all online and access them any place, any time?

I tried out OnLive properly tonight and frankly I’m stunned by just how impressive it is. It works by having all the actual processing happening on their massive high end server platforms and just beaming the pictures to your TV. You’re still in complete control of the game just as you would be if you were sitting in front of your own expensive gaming rig, but don’t need all that power to output the game at its highest settings.

There are a couple of ways to do it, but since the micro-console isn’t available in the UK as yet, I downloaded the software for PC. Now bear in mind my laptop can run Bioshock 1 at a medium resolution and that’s about as far as it can go. I certainly can’t play in 1080p. In fact, it struggles to play video in 1080p never mind games. I hooked it up to the TV via HDMI (and so got the dekstop at 1080p), plugged in my trusted wired XBox controller and proceeded to install the software not knowing how the experience would be. 5 minutes and one account signup later I was on and in the OnLive menu.

The as yet unavailable micro-console

The first thing that surprised me was that the locally installed software didn’t actually include the menu system. That’s streamed to your TV too. I foolishly realised I still had a download running in the background, so when I cancelled that suddenly the menu cleared up and looked a lot nicer. You know that way you watch a YouTube video in the default 360 or 480p then hit the HD button and suddenly it’s crystal clear? Well that’s what I got there. Clearly you need some available bandwidth to get things moving.

So I had a poke around and the very newly released Space Marine was available to play. There’s the option of a 30 minute trial and I’d quite fancied a go after playing the demo on XBox, so it seemed like the logical place to start. I picked the trial option and it started. Just like that, it started. No loading other than an initial few seconds and I was right in the game. This was faster to start than booting a game on console was and consoles are designed for instant starting! What’s cool is that it’s exactly the same as the menu was, being streamed to the machine.

I got into the game right away and I gotta say enjoyed it, but what I was impressed with most was the streaming technology. I figure the Cloud servers are probably in the States somewhere (they won’t be too close to me anyway – someone would’ve stolen them if they were), and yet every button press and stick waggle was instantly translated on screen. There was no lag at all so I wasn’t left behind staring at a wall while being descended upon by a horde of angry orcs. What was noticeable though was that when my connection was getting a bit busy the visual quality would drop and when it wasn’t the graphics would get better.

I should point out that I believe the old wireless card in the laptop was to blame for quality drops. It’s not wireless N you see although my router is, so I couldn’t get the best speed. In fact, when starting up OnLive it warned me that I was trying to play on wireless and I really should have a wired connection for the best experience. This will be where the little console option comes in best I’m sure.

So the only thing letting me down was the wireless connection. I get my broadband via BT Infinity and so I guess it’s higher speed than the majority of homes in the UK (with the average being around 6mb and me on 40mb), and clearly the capability of your broadband is the important factor here, but the fact is that this crappy old machine can suddenly play with the big boys again. I sure as hell won’t be buying any gaming PC hardware in the future. In fact, with any luck this will take off and we’ll see if not the next generation of console hardware then the next after that abandoning having super power at home and putting all the power in the Cloud.

I don’t see why the system would need to have PC or a console hardware at all actually. Since it’s just beaming a picture to you, why not have an Android or iPad app too? Many new tablets have a USB port on them, so pop a controller in it and boot up an app and maybe you could play Space Marine on an Asus Transformer or Samsung Galaxy Tab? Right now there are still a couple of issues in that the subscription ‘PlayPack’ bundle is a collection of pretty poor or old games you’ll probably never want to play, and the price of games is full USD RRP, so it’s no cheaper than buying a physical copy for XBox, but those aside I’m convinced the future of gaming is here, and I for one am looking forward to seeing where it goes. I sincerely hope it takes off as it has the potential to be a total game changer.

Check out OnLive for yourself at http://www.onlive.com.

There are many more features to explore like bragging clips, but another article detailing these features may follow once I’ve had the opportunity to explore a bit more.

A few months ago we launched a mini-league for Call of Duty:Black Ops that would pit the best of the communities mercenaries against each other in hard fought street-to-street combat.  My vision for this event was simple – “Close Quarter Battles”. 

I wanted to remove the run and gun style play that is often present with a larger team, where safety in numbers is assumed, and make people feel the isolation and tension of being on their own.  I hoped to see tactical use of cover in both offensive and defensive maneuvers, flanking, storming, flushing out, clearing high ground and advantage areas, and best use of care-packages.  What I got was a whole lot more exciting, and I was in at the deep end with the rest of them…

Now, not being a particularly good Call of Duty player at the best of times, I soon wondered what I’d let myself in for on this one, and found myself having to do a fair bit of research and planning before starting the league.  With special events there are always little bits and tweaks that need adjusting here and there unless you’re following some sort of model for how you set it up.  As we haven’t done an event like this since the Forza league,  I realised how few of these things we actually do, and have promised myself to keep the momentum going on community events better.

With Call of Duty:Black Ops allowing ‘join-in-progress’, I was at least able to set my party to private and go running around every map I had, testing their suitability against what I wanted.  Not knowing what sort of turnout to expect from week to week, I opted to go for a mix of maps, but ultimately I wanted something that was based on street-to-street fighting.  I wanted a feeling of urgency with people rushing from cover to cover, dropping smoke to create diversions, and the need to keep moving rather than digging in for long periods.  At the end of the day, if they wanted to win they needed to score points with kills, and that meant finding other players.

I decided to use the following maps -

Havana

‘Havana’ for round 1

I love this map.  There’s something about it that just says ‘shoot-out’.  I think I’ve chosen it based on the tense battles we’ve had in clan matches and because there are so many vantage points looking across the streets.  This is the kind of map where you don’t want to be out in the open for too long as there’s bound to be someone watching the main street from the hotels on either side of the road, or the upper rooms at the far ends which are great for long range weapons.

Firing Range

‘Firing Range’ for round 2

Firing Range was picked as a suitable smaller map that still loosely held onto the CQB theme.  It had less of a urban dwelling feel to it than a map with streets and brick buildings, but there were still huts, rooms, and ladders with high vantage points.  There was also plenty cover to run into, around, and hide behind which meant players had a lot of freedom of movement.  As it’s name suggests, this map is based on a training camp idea, with sliding targets, sand bag bunkers, and a watch tower adding to the defensive possibilities.

Cracked

‘Cracked’ for round 3

This is really what the whole league was based upon.  A broken city-scape: a scene of abandoned buildings and vehicles, a gauntlet of death and destruction.  Okay, so I’ve just been watching ‘East Enders’ on television and it rolled off my tongue before I knew it, but it had to be be said!

Seriously though, this is the map that I wanted people fighting over and rather than have it being the sole map for 4 weeks, I decided to make it the last round.  This is a large map best suited to a good number of players, but I felt that with even a handful of people running around, the attraction to some key locations would present regular challenges.

Game Restrictions

When I started planning this I knew I wanted to break away from the idea of team formations and weapon specialists performing their roles, which might be more apparent in Operation Flashpoint, but I know some CoD players adopt a similar method.  I wanted to highlight the fact that everyone was on their own; there were no alliances, no wing-men, no covering fire.  Each was a mercenary in their own right, battling for the spoils of victory, so literally anything had to go.  I wrestled with this decision at first knowing that more experienced players who had unlocked every weapon may be at a distinct advantage, but remembering that I tended to be annoyingly handy with a under-slung grenade launcher on my M4, I thought “stuff-it!” – no weapon restrictions at all.  This would allow for powerful customization and barbaric simplicity a like, and there would be no taking of prisoners.

The goal, the prize; there can be only two!

From the beginning of the league, anyone involved would see that to win it was going to be a hard-fought and constant battle across the four weeks.  I knew that it was a lot to ask players to commit to four weeks regular gaming nights, but then like all things, you get from it what you put into it; and this is part of the Project Echelon ethos.  People are not brow-beat into being involved, but if you do get involved and contribute to the life of our community then you’ll get so much back in return.  Call it gaming community ‘karma’.  Anyway, I had committed myself to running the league as a means to provide something for the Call of Duty players, so I had hoped that they would come along and show support too.

As an incentive for our league, I’d wanted to offer some sort of prize to the winner(s), and I had struggled to decide on what I was going to provide for this.  The standard Project Echelon long-sleeve tee-shirts made sense, but I felt something a little more unusual was called for as well.  With this in mind, a £20 note was to be wrapped ‘in’ the tee-shirt, and posted to whoever was lucky enough to win.  We don’t offer cash prizes for our leagues, mainly because it’s been done before, and sadly it begins to set an assumed standard of future prizes, and when the community doesn’t have an income as such this becomes a major issue.

So with a step of faith on a pretty decent prize intended for 2 players, the league was about to start.  Over the next 4 weeks, our players would fight across 3 challenging maps each Friday night, with a time limit of 30 minutes per map.  The scores from the first week would carry over to week 2, which would be added together, and after battling, again carry over to week 3, and so on to the 1st July.  Here the overall league winners would be announced based on their combined scores from all 4 weeks, with the top 2 winners scoring the highest over all the players in the league.

Can’t say fairer than that now can you??

“Let fly the dogs of war…”

Review of Week 1

This was an encouraging start to the league with some really good players turning up.  The downside was that the room privacy settings weren’t tight enough and ‘friends, of friends, of friends’ began joining us and taking part in the league too.  On any other night this would have been really good, but it meant that our own member’s scoring would be down due to other non-member players taking some of the kills.  With a few of our own squad having to drop off, it seemed a little unfair to continue the league night and it was postponed to the following week for a proper re-launch.

Action shot of 'xSPOOFx' rushing through one of the hotels

The next, better organized Week 1 which restarted the league wasn’t as well attended, but the quality of play was still there.  In some respects having only a few of us taking part made things more intense, with a lot of cat and mouse tension with close quarter knife kills.  On larger maps it was easy to lose people, and we’d find ourselves wandering around too much.  That said it was great fun, and it gave me a chance to final tweak some settings, rules, and study the maps in greater detail; also helping me to work out tactics and plan ahead for the next week of fighting.

View from a perfect sniper vantage point at one end of the street

Review of Week 2

Probably the best attended week with 7 players all together.  This was how I’d imagined the league going, with a really decent turnout, and lots of good-hearted chat back and forward.  Again the quality of the play was superb, and it was great to see building cover on maps like Havana being used to their full potential, and often defended well with claymore mines.  About an hour into this session, I realised I would have no chance of winning the league myself at all!  Not that I intended to or even wanted to, as at the end of the day I was doing this for the members, and encouraging them to try their best.   Sometimes it’s nice not to be consistently last though. . .

'Wolfman391' laying in wait for an unsuspecting 'LaChook'

Review of Week 3

Not so well attended, but I began to see the handful of players who were interested in our league coming back each week now.  Thankfully all the comments to this point had been good, and players were looking forward to our final session the following week.

The scene of many a fierce battle, to control one of the streets hotels

Another major fire-fight about to kick off

Review of Week 4

Our final session on Friday 1st July tolled the ‘last orders’ on our league event.  With a great turnout of 7 players, the fighting was back to its deadly fast pace; this time with a surprising amount of close quarter kills with knives and tomahawks.  Again the quality of play was amazing with lots of good chat and encouragement between the players.  We even had a few late joining entrants who knew they had no change of winning, but just wanted to take part and contribute something to what we were doing.

A smoke grenade is used for evasion

High Ground

The 'cracked' map was chosen for its detail of sheer devastation

One of the few lucky kills I managed to get at close range

After League Review

What can I say??  Such a good time of gaming with so many great people.  A big thank you to everyone who got involved and made it happen with your support -

Pat Shillings, Wolfman391, BluePrint 95, LRoy, xSPOOFx, Colonel Venom, oo PeatLoaf oo, RoundTwo, Racky B, The Likely Lad

For me personally, this has been such a good time of gaming, even if it isn’t a game I play very often.  I thoroughly enjoyed this and already have plans for more league events in the near future with the launch of Gears of War 3, Modern Warfare 3, and Battlefield 3 – gaaawd we’re spoiled this season for releases lol.

Overall league winners are “xSPOOFx” with 25900, followed by “Wolfman391” with 24850
KUDO’s to “Colonel Venom” for coming a close thrid place, particularly as he’d scored very high in a short space of time.

Hope to see you all at the next league event we run, here at Project Echelon!

Since Microsoft released motion sensing peripheral Kinect for Xbox 360 it has come under a fair bit of scrutiny as not having enough to interest the ‘hardcore’ gamer. E3 has shown a lot of new ways of interacting with games, but the first ‘proper’ game for Kinect has arrived right now in the form of Child of Eden, and I can safely say it’s a gem.

Many reviews on the net keep saying that it’s impossible to describe Child of Eden properly. It’s not that difficult really, but reducing it to a simple couple of sentences removes everything that makes it such an absolutely gorgeous experience. At its core it is a fairly simple on the rails shooter. You have a targeting reticule with two fire modes – lock on and rapid fire – and you aim and shoot as you’re taken through the level. Sounds pretty dull, doesn’t it? Well it most certainly is not.

Officially Not Dull

If you’ve ever played the games Lumines or Rez then you’ll likely be familiar with the games creator Tesuya Mizuguchi. A pioneer in “synthesesia”, he continually strives to bring immersive experiences to players rather than just a straight forward game. In all the aforementioned games as well as Child of Eden, each shot fired, enemy targeted, enemy destroyed and missile shot down results in a musical note sound effect. The rapid fire reticule for example always makes drum kit noises, sometimes being hi-hats or rat-a-tat snares. As you progress and destroy enemies the sound scape grows around you pulling you further and further into the game. I defy you not to enjoy the J-Pop infused music as you play even if you’re not a pop fan. I’m a die hard metal head, but I love the music in this.

The sound only provides half of the experience however as the visuals are an absolute joy to behold. Be sure to play this on the biggest high definition television you can find to experience the effect properly. For the most part it’s colourful almost wire frame enemies on screen but they are all based upon organic creatures and so swim or writhe about just as you would imagine. There’s a beautiful experience to be had when you’re playing drums on a purple giant squid.

Organic Enemies

And so on to maybe the most important of the review, the controls. You can actually play the game with a controller too, but its with Kinect where the fun really lies. The right hand controls the lock-on reticule and fires with a flick of the wrist while the left hand controls the automatically firing rapid fire, although you can only use one at a time. Moving the reticule near the edges of the screen will move the camera around which has a slight drawback as when you’re a little bit too slow in switching hands you can sometimes drag the screen around. I didn’t find it a massive problem, but in later stages where there are lots of enemy missiles incoming it can be quite a distraction. Brilliantly, the ‘euphoria’ smart bomb is activated by lifting both arms in the air above your head but it also tends to drag the camera upwards. I’ve not found myself using it too much though. Not because of the drag, but because I haven’t really needed to so far.

Contrary to other reviews out there, I find the Kinect controls are brilliantly responsive. So much so I find myself wondering why using the Kinect dashboard is so painfully slow. If you play it, pause the game midway through a level and try browsing your friends list via the Kinect dash. It’s soooooooo slow. I can’t actually speak for the controller mode as I’ve not tested it yet, but I imagine it’s not a million miles away from Rez. If Kinect does have one drawback though, it’s that after playing it for an hour your arms ache something terrible, though that certainly can’t be attributed to the game, just my weak arms.

Beautiful

Mizuguchi-san’s goal is to create an immersive experience and Child of Eden certainly does that. At times it’s like having half your senses wrapped in satin and lovingly caressed, though the camera drag does jolt you back to reality at times. I’m a huge fan of his work and so perhaps there’s a little bias here, but I urge anyone with Kinect to pick up this game. Even sitting on the couch spectating its still a wonder to the eyes and ears, though I’m sure spectators will be shouting for a go as soon as your finished.

Be sure to check out this gameplay video from Gamespot that will give you a little sample of what the game is like. When it’s in full flow its a lot busier, but this is a great little snippet.

With the recent revelation that GAME had been buying up Tesco stock of the new Nintendo 3DS hand-helds, and then selling it themselves as pre-owned stock, at the same price as a brand new 3DS, I take a look at how waiting and buying pre-owned games could save us a pretty penny

I recently had a discussion with one of our members about game release dates, and where the best places to buy new games were.  Besides the obvious benefit of sites like play.com for pre-ordering games to get them a little earlier or at discount, and the supermarkets for they’re periodic special 20% off deals, we also talked about pre-owned consoles and games too.  This raised a few questions on the assumed poor quality of 2nd-hand-plus games, and how reliable they were.

Now, hat’s off the people who are able to comfortably buy new games on release, even more so to people who have the readies to pick up extra titles when the mood takes them.  Sadly we aren’t all in that position, and many of us have to wait a bit longer to play the games our friends have had for a few weeks, while we have to sell the cat and trade a kidney in exchange for the next ‘big-thing’.  Yes, it can be an expensive hobby this whole gaming malarky, but does it need to be limited to buying something brand new?  Of course not.

With stores like GAME and GAMESTATION (who are essentially the same company now) having the motto “We won’t be beaten on trade-ins”, and Blockbuster Video boasting something similar, there is a market-place open for us to get games we missed the first time around.  The great and obvious appeal here is the price, and for the most part the games are alot cheaper, and often available in special offers like buy 2 or 3 for £’xyz’.  People trading in their unwanted games, either for cash or money off something newer and better, creates a wonderful opportunity for us to expand our game collection at a price that’s more manageable.  Occationally you do get to see a new release game that has been bought and sent back or traded in very quickly, so you won’t necessarily save anything other than a pound or so, but it all helps doesn’t it?  Even a few pounds off a new game can’t be sneazed at.

So what about the quality concerns?  My friend did raise a valid point here, and rightly so.  You don’t want to part with your hard earned cash for something unplayable, do you?  Even the condition of the box is a big hint at what lays inside as it shows the kind of care the previous owners game collection had.  That’s not to say that you should expect every pre-owned game to be in poor condition.  Quite the contrary, and if that were the case then these shops couldn’t make sales.  There has to be a recognisable standard before it can be resold to the pubic again, and generally it makes sure that the disks aren’t scratched or have obvious damage, and the game manuals enclosed are at least usable.  You do get some manuals and inserts that are a bit chewed or marked, but staff will check the contents over before boxing it ready for you at the checkout.  So for the mostpart, you can at least be assured your ‘new’ game has been looked over for damage before being sold to you.

Over the last few months I’ve been keeping my eye out for reduced and pre-owned games, with a view to trying a more casual gaming approach around my work and family committments.  My thoughts are that if I struggle to get online during the week, then I’d be better trying to fit in more solo game-play and trying my hand at campaigns, rather than push for a multiplayer experience.  I already run a dedicated Friday night social game session called “Chook’s Challenge“, based on my gamertag being ‘LaChook’, which is often a night of online battles into the wee small hours; so as long as I can at least get to play with people there I’m happy.  Any other gaming time is a bonus, so hence my thoughts on playing on my own when I can fit it in as well, and it helps me boost my gamerscore too.  My recent pre-owned purchases included Halo:Reach, which was a great opportunity for me to catch up with a group of members I didn’t have many games in common with, bridging the gap a little.  This I bought pre-owned for £19.99 from Blockbuster, and what swayed me initially was the great condition of the box and game inserts.  Shortly after this I was able to get Battlefield Bad Company 2, and then Need for Speed:Hot Pursuit, both for around the same price, and very entertaining games indeed.  ‘Hot Pursuit’ is a relatively new game, so I was pretty chuffed to get a good saving on it.

Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t for one minute begrudge paying for a full price game, and this isn’t about being too tight-fisted to pay that little bit extra.  On the contrary, I’ve bought plenty of new releases, some even being special box-sets too.  However, thinking back over the years, I realised that I’d bought quite a significant amount of pre-owned games, played and kept or traded them in again, and they range from Oblivion:Elder Scrolls, Star Wars:Battlefronts II, Guitar Hero 2 & 3 Legends of Rock, to name some.  I believe having the ability to buy pre-owned games has allowed me to expand my gaming styles and experiences, and has in turn helped me to build up a collection I can draw from to trade-in towards newer games as well.

I’m about to trade in Homefront against buying new release Operation Flashpoint:Red River, and hope to get a pretty decent price for it.  Homefront is still a good game, but for me it’s been a stop-gap until ‘Op Flash’ comes out, but here we see the whole pre-owned system coming full-circle now.  When I trade-in my copy, even though it’s only been out a month or two, it’ll end up back on the shelves again at a slightly reduced price.  This is perfect for anyone wanting to get it for a few pound cheaper, and still be assured that someone looked after the game well and didn’t abuse it or throw it about the house.  In some respects, I take a pride in knowing someone else will be able to benefit from it this way.

The appeal and benefits

The greatest attraction is the dramatic drop in price, and you may also benefit from a bundle deal.  You may see this as a special offer such as a 2 or 3 games for £20 for example, or perhaps even as part of a console bundle offer.  There are plenty of pre-owned games out there, so you won’t be stuck for choice, and there’s something for everyone.  If you missed a new release first time around, keep an eye out for it a few months later once people have had a chance to play through the missions and get bored of the multiplayer, etc.  There will always be one somewhere.  However for new game releases it’s unlikely you will save more than a few pounds at most.  Here you would be better off considering a trade in with other games to further reduce the price if you can.  If you’re careful though, buying pre-owned games can really boost your game collection quickly.  It’s also a great way to learn new styles of gameplay and meet a whole new bunch of people online too, so it opens up to more social play as well.  This has allowed me to explore the driving game genre in addition to my love for First Person Shooters for example.

The down-sides

Obviously the quality of the disk, manuals, and game box is the biggest concern, but as long as you get to give the product a good look over and you’re happy with it, then there shouldnt be anything to worry about.  Check for scratches and dirt on disks before you leave the shop, if possible asking to see it yourself when they check the disk.  I once had a copy of the horror/shocker Condemned which I bought from a pre-owned bargin bin, and to all extents and purposes it looked okay and played well.  That is until I got to 5th section of the game and I found out there was some damage to the sectors on the disk and the game didn’t display properly.  Thankfully I still had my receipt and took it back to get a direct swap for another copy.  If I hadn’t still had my receipt I would have been stung a bit there, so the moral of the story is…. keep the paperwork.

A final comment on trading-in…

If you do decide to trade in some of your lovingly aquired game collection for either money back or a discount against another purchase, remember that times have changed.  You no longer get the superb deals we got a few years back, and you very rarely get your money’s worth these days.  When I traded in Lost Planet a while ago, I quickly found out that it’s a buyers opportunity, not a sellers market.  It took a lot of convincing myself to get rid of it in favour of something else newer, but I was horrified to be only offered a few pounds for it at most.  Later that week I traced the box with the tiny sticker I’d cunningly added the edge of the box, and found it for sale for around £16.  It doesn’t seem fair does it?  The stores still manage to take their pound of flesh…

So I have my eye on a few guilty pleasures coming up soom with Operation Flashpoint:Red River on Friday, and possibly next on the (red) cards is Fifa 11, and maybe even Dead Space 2 if I can find the time…  Happy gaming everyone!