Dead Island (X360)

Dead Island (X360)

Now, as I have preached many times, I am a MASSIVE fan of Diablo. The simplicity of it is something that I am still in awe of. How they managed to take a simple concept and turn it into such a fantastic game (in my opinion) is beyond me, seeing as there are numerous other games that have a similar concept but just don’t seem to work quite as well. Dungeon Siege 3 is a prime example of this (review to come). One of the reasons for this is the pure size of the game world. Where Diablo had a fairly small (in comparison) area to explore, games such as Dungeon Siege 3 and Skyrim (again, review to be posted later) have a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge area to explore. This being the case, there are far too many hours to count in terms of physical gameplay for the game (Skyrim is said to have well over 100 hours of gameplay in it, including all side quests and whatnot). And this brings me nicely onto Dead Island. Dead Island also has a huuuuuuge map to explore. However, this one is limited purely by the size of the island and the hordes of zombies wishing to eat your brains. However, let’s start from the beginning and work up to this.

Dead Island is an action-adventure game set on the fictional holiday island of Banoi, a picturesque destination that reminds me of the Maldives and the Seychelles (I haven’t been to these places, but I have seen many pictures). The island has been engulfed by a highly contagious infection that turns people into zombies (though, strangely, your character is immune…..riiiiiiiight.). You can choose one of 4 characters to be, each with their own obvious strengths – there’s one for sharp weapons, one specialising in throwing weapons, one specialising in blunt weapons and the other specialising in firearms (these don’t appear for use until about halfway through the game). The game itself, like many others, is entirely first-person centred, giving you absolutely no option over this viewpoint. This in itself is good, as it intensifies the horror when a zombie attacks you from behind. However, it can be slightly annoying as you never know when a zombie is about to attack you, leaving you very vulnerable and frustrated as you die, AGAIN, trying to kill a horde of the undead. Always fun.

The story begins a big party at your hotel, your character stumbling around drunk as a skunk. You wake up in the morning and the place appears deserted. You then stumble around the corridor and hear a voice over the speaker telling you what happened. You then encounter some of the undead but, not having a weapon, you have to run. Literally. You then meet the guy who spoke over the speaker system, a lifeguard by the name of Sinamoi. You aid him in a few quests, leading him and few survivors to a lifeguard station, protected from the undead. From here, the plot follows the same basic notion – you do quests for Sinamoi and some of the other survivors, which then leads you to the lighthouse, another secure area full of some survivors. This basic principle goes on until you find more survivors in a church, and then you hear from the very….’special’ Colonel Ryder White, who tells you his wife is suffering from the infection and you may be able to help him create an anti-virus as you’re immune, and all this, blah blah, blah. Anyway, you can guess where the rest is going or, better yet, play it yourself and find out!! So, moving along.

The gameplay itself, as previously stated is entire first person and focuses primarily on melee combat. In accordance with this, you can acquire a rather large range of weapons to use against the undead, with just about anything useable against the damn things. You start off by getting an ordinary boat paddle, but as you progress the weapons get better and more powerful, including various hammers, axes and even katana’s. These weapons can also be modified in various ways using some of the various items you’ll pick up as you go through the game. Your inventory soon becomes full of some of the most random of items, most of which are useless, but some of which have their uses, including stuff such as barbed wire, nails and batteries. This puzzled me too, right up until I managed to acquire (steal) a blueprint for a weapons modification, which allows me to rig my weapon to electrocute the zombies. A friend of mine had already done this to his katana (electric sword for the win!!) and it was rather amusing to watch a zombie have its head cut off at the same time as it’s being electrocuted!!

The zombies themselves are, for the most part, your average run of the mill type, the kind you see in the old zombie flicks – slow, refuse to die and intent on eating your brains. However, there are a few exceptions – there are of course ‘boss’ zombies and ‘special’ zombies. The boss zombies are like any boss – lots of health, difficult to hit without getting battered yourself and usually surrounded by hordes of smaller ones just to annoy you. The ‘special’ zombies are actually very well thought out. There’s the ‘thug – lots of health, but rather easy to defeat if you can keep dodging their attacks (nice and slow, like a zombie should be); the ‘suicider’ – get near him and he begins to throb and then explodes, killing you if you don’t get far enough away very quickly; the ‘ram’ – a very big guy who looks like Hannibal Lecter and refuses to die, and so forth. All zombies have their weak points, though for the most part, aiming for the head will work in the majority of situations.

The combat itself is actually very good. The buttons are very responsive (as was the exact problem with Fable 2), though there are very few combos, so button bashing tends to work, right up until the point where you run out of stamina (just like a normal human, very realistic). Once this is depleted, you have to wait for it to refill before you can continue with the killing. Makes for slightly more challenging and tactical gameplay, a very welcome addition I must say. The weapons themselves, as stated, can be modified to be more powerful and also upgraded to be slightly more powerful. However, they come at a cost, with each weapon taking damage that must be repaired or the weapon will break and become useless. On top of this, modifying a weapon lowers its durability, so think very carefully before you actually modify anything. This is where the inventory screen comes in incredibly useful – seeing as you’ll probably be carrying multiple items that can be used as weapons, each be assigned an inventory slot, meaning it’s simply a case of hitting RB when you need a different weapon. Another welcome addition to the game.

Speaking of welcome additions, one of the nicer things about the game is the ability to use vehicles. Not only do the make it much easier to get about on the island, but they can also be used as a weapon against the undead. This can be especially fun when playing co-op slightly later in the game. It seems that you can use guns when you're a passenger....always fun. Committing a drive by in most games will see you landed in hot water with the police, but in Dead Island, its just another fun way of killing some zombies. And when is that ever a bad thing?

Now, as much as I like this game (and I must say, I do rather enjoy it), it does come with its problems. The gameplay can get very repetitive – kill zombie, collect item, head back, kill zombie, give item, kill more zombie go get another item. The side quests do break it up slightly, but it’s still very samey. However this can be forgiven, there’s only so much you can do with zombies and beating the crap out of them. There is one thing I cannot forgive though and that is poor graphics. The graphics in Dead Island are, I have to say, fucking awful. We’re talking about one of the most advanced mass-produced consoles around, with full HD capabilities and a huge processor. Now, like most people, I have my X360 hooked up via HDMI so as I can actually see the game as it was meant to be. But Dead Island spends almost all of its time looking like a fucking NES game!! It is so blocky it’s unreal, there’s almost no flow to the movements in-game at all. The cut-scenes look fine, they’re just like a movie, but the gameplay is inexcusable. Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand that there are many many things going on at the time, and the majority of the background pieces are very pretty and clear, which may explain everything. I’m all for having a nice background, but not at the detriment of gameplay. Big mistake there.

As a whole though, I do really enjoy Dead Island. It’s a very fun game to play, especially in small doses. Anything more than a few hours and my eyes start to melt, but I still come back to it once they’ve reformed. I do recommend playing it co-op with a friend though, it can make the game much easier to survive and generally more fun. However, as with all games, it should be able to quite happily stand on its own in single-player and I'm very pleased to say this one does.

Now, go buy it. Or face a horde of the undead. And me. Not entirely sure which one is more scary.....

Forza Motorsport 2

Considering I am very critical of any driving game I could ever play since owning a copy of Gran Turismo, I have tried to keep an open mind when it comes to various other driving/racing games. Some of them are just truly terrible (such as Sega Rally on the Sega Saturn – the single worst driving game I’ve ever played), some are not so bad (any of the Colin McCrae series fall into this) and some are actually not too bad at all (the DiRT series). However, Forza is one of those games that falls into almost the same category as Gran Turismo. It has been hailed as one of the best racing simulators ever made…..yeah, moving swiftly along…..and back round onto this point actually.

To be considered a good racing simulator, a game must make you feel like you are directly in the driving seat, that every single little thing you do has a huge impact on the way the car feels and handles. Like most games, some of this comes from the player’s own imagination. But the more of this that a game can do, the more it can be considered a simulator. Now, to be given this crown the game must be considered to be better than Gran Turismo, and I’m going to make it very clear right now, I don’t think it is. I will agree that it is a very very good game, but it is NOT better than Gran Turismo. But more on that later.

Like many racing games, there’s not much you can really do with a racing game besides drive a car really fast around a track. However, the format in which you do it and the in-game reasons as to why you do this are what makes it good. With Forza 2, it’s slightly old-school in how the game plays out. Like the original Gran Turismo’s, you play through the game collecting money and cars whilst completing races. Like the Gran Turismo series, you take part in races that, not only get unlocked when you reach different levels, but get completed by winning a set number of races in a series. In winning these races, you acquire credits and experiences, leading to more races and cars being available.

When you begin the game, you pick one of 3 regions – Europe, Asia and North America – each of which has its own brands of car and whatnot. Of course, each of these brands has some kind of normal car through to various racing or classic cars. The cars themselves range from D-class up to A-class, through S-class and into one of the 4 kinds of Racing cars, R4 being the least powerful and whatnot, up to R1 being the kind of car you’d see at the Le Mans 24 hour endurance race. Big engines, masses of grip and great handling. Win. Literally.

The races themselves range from being very simple 2 lap races through to 50 lap endurance races, which can take anything up to 3 hours to complete. Some of them can be incredibly boring to do, so you can actually hire a driver to do the race for you. In doing this, you lose a large cut of your winnings (should your driver actually win) but you don’t have to spend all the time sat in front of your TV. Also a win. It’s a bit like Season B on Gran Turismo 5 actually….

The nitty gritty bits of this game are what really make it as good as it is though. The graphics aren’t the sharpest in the world, but they’re far from bad. They’re sharp enough to see every single curve of a car’s body but not so clear you can see individual grains of dirt kicked up when your tires go off-road. In hindsight, that’s probably a good thing. The driving itself is very well balanced between the cars. Older cars have very heavy steering, whilst racing cars have a very light feel meaning you can chuck them into corners and come out the other side straight and true.

The problem I have with this game is that I struggled to actually stop playing it. Once I’d started I really struggled to stop. I was determined to actually get 100% completion, meaning that I’d finished every race, but not acquired every car, and considering there are over 300 cars, I couldn’t be bothered to get them all. Relating this back to Gran Turismo though, Gran Turismo has a more overall real feel to it. The way the season plays out and the way the car feels to drive just make it feel like it’s a more refined game. Forza is good as a simulator, and it’s the closest thing we’re ever going to get on the X360, but it still doesn’t quite compare. Highly recommended though. Go buy it. Now.

Pokemon Red/Blue (GB)

In the modern world, there are boundaries and rules governing everything that we do. These rules especially apply to children. Long gone are the times when children used to go out to work in the mines at 14 instead of continuing at school. These days, kids stay on at school, get pregnant do drugs and sit about on benefits. According to the Japanese, however, kids go out into the world and spend their time getting beaten up, battling and catching wild animals….all made out of various lines of computer code. Or something. Basically, the world you’re running about in is full of bad people from ‘Team Rocket’ who you defeat by battling Pokémon with them.

The basic story is that at the age of 11 you are given your very first Pokémon by a creepy old guy known as Professor Oak. He gives you a Pokémon, you then have to deliver a package to him, and then you’re free to, for the most part, your own devices. You then have to through the rest of the “world” (which is actually about the size of a small county…..though how you’d walk through the entire county in the space of about 18 hours is beyond me). During this time, you also have to collect numerous badges by visiting gym leaders. After collecting all 8, you can entire the Pokémon league, giving you the chance to defeat the Elite Four, who are deemed to be the supreme beings of Pokémon fighting. Once you defeat these guys, the only thing left to do it collect all 150 Pokémon. Wow, joy.

So, the whole premise of this game, as you have probably gathered by now, is to collect 150 different creatures and raise them up until they are strong enough to defeat anybody else. Of course, I have never actually done this, as I could never actually be bothered to collect all 150 Pokémon of the damn things. I really don’t have that much time on my hands, or the energy, or patience or lack of everything else in my life. One of the biggest challenges is working out which attacks work against which Pokémon. For example, psychic attacks work brilliantly against grass or ghost types, but are awful against other psychic types. However, once you’ve worked this bit out, the rest of the game becomes a breeze. Just make sure you send out the right Pokémon against the right type, or you’ll be dealing no damage and wasting your time, leaving you set to lose the battle.

In honesty , there’s actually a lot to say about this game – you collect Pokémon, you battle them, you raise them til they’re strong, you defeat the elite four, you catch them all (yeah, I went there). As a whole though, I really rather enjoy this game. It’s not exactly on its own anymore and the graphics are so blocky it’s untrue, but it’s still good. It’s a good game to play when you’re bored and having nothing else to do, and its veeeeery good to play when you’re very bored on a long journey. There are better games, but I’ll stick with this one for now.

Mirror's Edge (PS3)

Once upon a time, many moons ago (ok maybe about 2 years ago), I walked into a video game store (which shall remain nameless so I don’t get done for copyright). On the monitor on the wall I saw a game and I thought to myself “damn that game looks awesome” and so I resigned myself to the fact that I had to own this game. Soon enough came the time when I actually went and bought the game. That game....was Mirror’s Edge.

And that’s about the point when things decided to change. Now, I have to admit, it’s taken me a while to actually start playing Mirror’s Edge. It’s been sat in my games tower for a while now but, in the early hours of the morning, I got very bored and thought to myself “I’m actually going to play Mirror’s Edge” and so I did. And, I have to say, I was actually quite disappointed. Whether that’s because I’d built the game up so much in my own expectations or simply because it’s not that good....well, we’ll see what happens during this review.

So the game starts off with you being given the back story to the city. Apparently the city has become almost exactly the same as George Orwell’s 1984, with security cameras everywhere and every move that everyone makes being monitored by the Government. However, this Government seems to be some evil corporation that everybody hates. Although the only people that hate it seem to be the “runners”, of which you control one of them. Your character is a “runner” called Faith, who spends her time running across the rooftops of the city carrying messages and bags and.....probably something else as well. In doing this, Faith attracts the attention of the cops, who have this vendetta against her, and take great pleasure in shooting at her from a helicopter. Bastards.

The gameplay itself is.....a little odd, shall we say. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for using the entire terrain to your advantage and being able to explore just about everything, but it does come with its problems. Running across the rooftops is great fun, although you always seem to be doing this with a time limit or several cops chasing you in one manner or another. Now, this gets to be great fun, though I’m waiting for the time when free-roaming becomes an option. The controls themselves are rather odd to adapt to, though they do work. Instead of using the standard X and O buttons and whatnot, you use the R and L buttons for the most part. The Triangle button is used for disarming cops and the Square button is used for engaging ‘reaction time’, which I’m pretty sure is just something that EA stole from the Matrix. However, it is useful in that it means you can actually disarm a cop, another option besides kicking the hell out of them. Works for me.

However, there are a couple of issues I have with Mirror’s Edge. One of the main issues is the ‘leap of faith’. When you’re on a ledge, you have to turn around and jump onto another ledge. The issue with this being that you can’t turn your head completely around, so you end up having to just jump and hope, usually ending up in you falling and hitting on the ground several hundred stories below. On top of this, I have to make a very big point about the graphics. Now, I’m quite a long way behind the times and it wasn’t long ago that I finally had my PS3 hooked up via HDMI. Now, as ‘bad’ as my TV is (soon to be replaced), even I notice a MASSIVE difference between HDMI and scart, though Mirror’s Edge seems to be a game that has no idea what HD is. The graphics are incredibly blocky and remind me greatly of the old Mario games on the NES.

If I completely honest though, I did enjoy Mirror’s Edge. Many people have said it’s not that good, and there’s not enough playtime in it, but I enjoyed it. It’s a good game, the graphics leave something to the imagination but it grows on you. And if you don’t like it, don’t play it. I’m cool with it. I’m gonna keep playing it. Yeah I said that......BOOM!!!

Fable II (X360)

Now I have to say this right from the out, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the X360, but I’ve decided to actually splash out on Xbox live (yes, I really am that far behind the times) purely so I can keep in contact with friends, seeing as some of them haven’t seen the light and joined the PS3 generation (in your face Microsoft, I’m a Sony man!!). However, until the time comes when I have the funding available (it’s not exactly high on my list of priorities), I shall pass the waiting time playing some of my X360 games that do not require the web. One such game (and I don’t own many) is Fable II. Now, I own a classic Xbox AND Fable, but have neither the time, energy or space set them up and play, so I’m not fully up to date with the whole story of Fable. However, I shall give it a go to review this game the best I can.....don’t get your hopes up.

From what I can make out from the opening sequences and cinematics, the basics of the story are that you choose a character to control (well, duh) and they are, without knowing it, part of a bloodline of “heroes”, something I’m sure becomes apparent to them later on. Personally, I think I’d notice something was up when I realised I could jump 50ft off a building and land without any real injury, considering that kind of fall would kill anybody else. One point against the character’s intelligence there (already not looking good).

Of course, once you start, you get a basic run-through of the controls, which is useful seeing as I’m far too lazy to read the manual. This in itself brings out a couple of issues I already have with the game. Firstly, you have to press and hold (until your finger falls off with cramp) the LT button to pay attention to what’s going on....I’m sorry, I don’t need to see the 1st-person view to see what’s going on. I can see from where I’m standing and I can hear the dialogue. One point against the gameplay there.

A second point that I have to make VERY clear before I go any further is that I’m NOT a fan of the Xbox controller. I don’t like the position of the analogue sticks, but I can adapt, pending on the game. However, there are some things that I do not adapt to. One such thing is the delay between me pressing a button and my character doing something that resembles what I asked him to do. I can understand that wireless controls have this problem but the lag is untrue - it’s awful!! Secondly on this point is the way the controls work. I’m sure I’ll get used to them in time after playing for a few hours but the controls feel, at best, like I’ve dropped my controller in a bucket of wallpaper paste mixed with superglue. They’re so gummy it’s untrue and that annoys me. Point against the gameplay there.

Several hours of gameplay later.....

Ok I’m still not really a fan of the X360 controller, it’s too big and clunky in my hand when I’m trying to control a very gummified character. The controls still clog a bit, and the combat system, while nice and simple to a point, is very............well, let’s say it doesn’t exactly flow very well. You’re happy hacking away at an enemy, then they go down and your character keeps on hacking away at empty space. Of course, you can cut this bit out (slightly) by using some of the special techniques you learn, such as block. HOWEVER, this is not the most useful technique as when you’re holding the button to use block, you leave yourself exposed for a split-second, in which time I always seem to get hit. Now, this may just be me, but I thought the point of block was that you DON’T get hit? It seems more logical to have a separate button for block attacks, as most other games do. Maybe that’ll change when they bring out Fable III. Well, I hope so, anyway.

Moving along from my severe dislike of that though, the gameplay is actually getting better. The gold trail that leads you to quests is incredibly useful, as is the inclusion of your canine companion. Of course, to unlock all the achievement, you have to do some very tedious things, such as play fetch, but whatever, I don’t have time to unlock ALL the achievements. When not discussing the achievements though, your canine friend has an uncanny ability to find various bits of treasure as you go through the game, and will bark at you until you follow them and either dig up the treasure (after you have a spade of course) or open the chest. Either way, it’s useful.

Still, as much as I love adventure games, there’s not really enough going on in Fable II to properly hold my attention. It’s more one of those games that I’ll put on randomly, play for a while and then go play various other games for a few weeks, then come back to Fable. All the while, realising that I haven’t really missed playing it. Don’t get me wrong, by no means is it a bad game, but it’s also not really a good game, it doesn’t make me want to spend the entire day playing it.

For me, it’s like Guitar Hero at parties – it never hurts to have it, when you’re bored out of your brain and there’s nothing else to do. Except at a party, everyone would be drunk and laughing at people who can’t play a guitar. And Fable is like being the person who sit’s there refusing to play and drinking mineral water. And not driving home. And who nobody except about 2 people like. Yeah, that guy. Wow, win for Fable there.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 (PS2)

The inevitable has happened. I’ve decided to review one of my favourite game-series of all time....though this instalment only concerns itself with the fourth part of what feels like 325965, though in reality is only about 10. Currently, I’m one game short of having all of the Tony Hawk skating games, and the only reason for that is that the vast majority of my money gets spent on beer, or cider, or my car, or other stuff besides computer games. I really should rectify that.....however, back to the game.

Before we get into the game, we must, as per usual, give a little background to it. Tony Hawk himself is one of the most famous and biggest names in the extreme sports domain and, thanks in large part to his games, in numerous other areas as well. When I was slightly younger, we had the “goth” and “punk” phase of teenage rebellion. Of course this wasn’t the same punk phase as the 60s and 70s but still, the point stands. One of the staple parts of being a punk included a skateboard. Whether you actually had the skills to ride a half-pipe or even pull an Ollie, if you had a skateboard, you were considered “cool”. Around this time, Tony Hawk was gaining recognition within the skateboard world for being the first guy to land a 900 degree spin in competition. Doesn’t seem much but I’m sure to a skateboarder, it makes more logic. Also around this time, we had the arrival of “Tony Hawk’s Skateboarding” on the PlayStation. A game with blocky graphics and simple controls that made skateboarding accessible to the masses. I’m sure sales of boards went through the roof when this game came out. Luckily, I was never one of those that bought one.
After the release of the first one, came the second and third instalments, each adding more features and advanced gameplay to the mix, before we arrive at the fourth offering, and the subject of this review. For anyone that’s played the games in order, they’ll understand the features that have been added, but I can’t be bothered to explain them so go play it for yourself anyway. I'll give you a couple hours to work it all out.

You done? Good. Read on.....

The gameplay as a whole is fairly simple, you press X to Ollie, the square and directional button to do a flip trick, circle and directional for a grab trick and triangle and directional for a grind. Of course, while grinding, you have to maintain your balance so as not to fall off and lose your combo, made easier by the balance bar in the middle of the screen – easier to use than the older versions, which were a straight line, compared with 4’s, which is a nice curve. I like it. The basis of the game is pick a pro skater from one of the pre-selected choices and use them to complete various challenges in various parts of the world, including London town, a carnival, Kona skatepark (I believe this is in America and rather well known.....even though I’d never heard of it) and Alcatraz prison. Yes you read that correctly.

The aim of the game is to complete challenges, including collecting letters, completing races, doing tricks over certain objects in a certain way, and some random ones thrown in that pertain to the environment. In the zoo level, you have to hold onto an elephant’s tail whilst it sprays you with dung (!), whilst in the first level (the name escapes me and I’m lazy) you have to collect a line of pink elephants for a drunk and hallucinating hobo. Once you complete the amateur level goals, you unlock the pro goals, which are basically the same except much harder. Then of course, there are the hardcore goals, which only the most seasoned of veterans or those with many, many hours of time on their hands will bother to complete. Of course, completing the goals is not just for kicks, you get money for doing so, which can then be spent on unlocking more levels, cheats, characters and various items of clothing to be used in the create-a-skater mode.

The create-a-skater mode is much improved from the older versions, with much more stuff as standard, and the character actually looking half-human. Of course, the addition of being able to create a female character is welcomed from the previous versions (though the one in THPS3 wasn’t exactly feminine, hence my point) as it means that girls that play this game can play as a female character (yes, it has been known). Whether that’s political correctness, gender equality or just the general inclusion of women, I don’t know but it works, so......yeah I don’t know where I’m going with this.

Overall, I don’t really have any criticisms to make of this game, except the fact that it’s incredibly time-consuming. I can quite easily replicate what I do with Diablo, but more so. I was playing it earlier and didn’t realise that 5 hours had gone by. Yes, my life really is that empty. I’m going to go write some poetry and cry now so toddle on.

Torchlight (PC)

Ah the joy of reviewing games....an excuse to play video games, sit on my ass and waste many hours of my very unimportant time.

Granted, I’ve already reviewed Diablo and Torchlight is actually a very similar game.....which probably explains why I like it. Torchlight is your basic hack and slash adventure game. You choose your character from a choice of 3, the standard warrior, mage and rogue classes being the norm. The warrior, as per usual, specialises in melee weapons, primarily swords and axes. The mage specialises in magic attacks of various kinds, using wands as weapons. The rogue specialises in distance attacks, the bow being the usual weapon of choice but in Torchlight you get to use....wait for it....guns. Yes, you get to use guns. I know, my mind was blown as well!! Still, I personally prefer using the warrior, as I do when playing Diablo and Baldur’s Gate (review coming soon).

However, back to the game. As you can probably guess, the main point of the game is that you choose your character than spend the next several hours wandering around “dungeons” of various degrees of difficulty collecting weapons and armour and completing various quests set by members of the village. After completing each quest, you return to the village to be given experience points, gold and another quest. As well as the main quest from the standard “dungeons”, there is also a guy that gives you quests to kill monsters so he can write a song about your victory(!) and a guy that asks you to go through a portal and collect an artefact that I assume he wants to see on the black-market.

As with most games these days, the weapons you get can be upgraded in various forms, but Torchlight only gives you the chance to upgrade through inserting gems into certain weapons, which changes the attributes of it (the weapon), pending on the gem in question. Unlike other games I’ve played with this system, the gem can actually be removed from the weapon in future, for a cost. Again, another random yet welcome addition is the removal of gems through the destruction of the weapon, rather than the gem. Useful, if you don’t want the weapon again but want the gem. Obviously, the other way of doing it is just to have the gem destroyed but keep the weapon. Works for me!!

A few more welcome features now: the first one being the addition of a pet, either a cat or a dog. This pet not only acts as a means of carrying extra weapons, potions and armour but also acts as a form of attack, the pet helping to defend you against some of the many hordes the game throws at you. On top of this, the pet can be sent off to town to sell some of the weapons and armour, which is useful seeing as almost every monster drops something. Various fish can also be caught and fed to your pet, which changes it into different monsters that can help, or can change the form of your pet. Useful, but also pointless as I never use any of them. I just leave it as a means of carrying stuff and getting rid of it. Another very welcome, if unexpected, feature is the ability to carry to sets of weaponry. As the warrior, I have one set of weapons that does around 1000hp damage and the other does about 900, and having the choice to switch between the 2 is useful.

There is one thing that bugs me veeeeeery slightly though and that’s the fact that this is one of those games that can only be seen on the PC. I’m a massive fan of games across various consoles, which makes sense considering how many consoles I own. Diablo is available across PC and PlayStation, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater can be seen across numerous consoles, most new games can be seen at least PS3 and X360 and sometimes the Wii. But Torchlight is only going to be seen on the PC. The sheer number of buttons needed just to control the various bits boggles the mind, meaning you need to remember all of them or have to wait for a cut-scene just so you can remember what each one does.

I have to say, I did (and still do) enjoy playing Torchlight. It’s very much like Diablo II, which was a great improvement on the first one, but with a few additions. It’s very much a cartoon version of Diablo in my world, and that’s fine with me. Bottom line, if you like Diablo or Baldur’s Gate, you’ll like Torchlight. Go buy it. Go now. Leave me alone. Go. Buy. Leave. NOW!!!

Gran Turismo (PSOne)

Every so often, there comes a game that really sets, not only the standard, but begins the revolution within the gaming world. Gran Turismo is one of these games. Before Gran Turismo came along, most driving games would quite easily allow you to press one button to accelerate and then steer using the walls and other drivers, with all the cars driving about the same. This was the biggest shock though, when this game came out. You actually HAVE to DRIVE these cars. All the cars have different acceleration, max speed and VERY different handling styles, with you needing to master each of them to get anywhere.

Let's give some background on the story of the game. You play a nameless, faceless, bodyless, characterless.....character who happens to own their own house with an indefinitely sized garage and an immensely broad spectrum of car control. You have to buy yourself a car, then do some races. Before you can race, though, you have to get a license, of which there are 3. Obviously, each license task has a time limit and the better you do, the better your award. If you get all gold on the tasks for a license you get rewarded with a car....not much use unless it meets the requirements of the championship you want to race in.

So your basic aim is to collect as many cars as possible, to win all the championships and then you're done and can sit back and collect money. This in itself is both a good and a bad thing. The championships themselves vary, in there being some designed only for rear-wheel drive cars, some for intercontinental cars (there being only 3 countries that all the cars come from; UK, USA and Japan). This adds the challenge of actually winning a championship, which brings in money and a new car, which can be either good or bad, pending on the car.

As a game, I reckon this one ha s alot of replay-ability. It's one of those games where once you've done everything, there's actually nothing else to do but go back and start again from scratch. And of course, that's a sure-fire way to waste a few hours. Just take my word on it, and make sure you have room to save your game. I spent about 6 hours playing it and then realised I couldn't save it....oops!!

Diablo (PC)

Every so often there comes a game that people will hold close to their heart for one reason or another. For some people it's a classic console game they played when they were a child, for others it could be the first game they ever completed. For me, it has to be Diablo. A game very close to my heart for.............I'm not entirely sure why, but I know it is.

Diablo was released by Blizzard Entertainment about 10 years ago now (give or take a yr or two) on the PC, with a Playstation version coming out shortly after. The game is a typical action-adventure game, with you controlling one of 3 characters through 15 levels of a labyrinth until you reach the Lord of Terror himself and attemtp to kill him. Whilst attempting to find refuge, the Lord of Terror has taken up residence below the town's cathedral....fitting!! The 3 characters are the warrior, who specialises in melee attacks and is crap at magic; the rogue, who specialises in bows and just generally acts as eye-candy (though not very well, it must be said); and the sorcerer, who specialises in magic attacks of various kinds and is crap at close-combat.

Now before we get to the gameplay, let us discuss some of the story within Diablo the game. You begin the game in the town of Tristam outside what we are lead to believe is your house/shack/wherever you take hookers. Before you go down into the labyrinth you talk to people in the town to find out what they offer, and then the inn-keeper tells you about what happened after you'd left and before you returned....now. Apparently someone betrayed the king, found the soulstone that was holding the Lord of Terror and released him, at which point Diablo is very weak and finds the body of a weak human he can possess (in this case, the king's child). The king of the land, Leoric, then goes mad, fights his way through the labyrinth to find his son but fails and dies in the underworld. At this point, it's left to you to find the lost child, kill Diablo and generally save the town from falling apart.

The gameplay is very simple, you just point and click on where you want to go, who you want to talk and who you want to kill. It does get slightly annying when you have to click on the same demon hundreds of times just to kill him. The fact that this thing is trying to kill you and you SHOULD repeatedly hit him doesn't really make sense to your character, as when you click it once, you only attack once. So pretty soon your finger does get really tired with all the clicking, as well as you begin to hate the sound of mouse-click. Aside from that, everything seems to work fairly well. You press a button to bring up the map, another to use healing potions and others to........do other stuff. Generally speaking the whole point and click works. Well, for me anyway.

There are couple of issues with the gameplay though. As a I said, the repeateded clicking is very annoying. Another thing is the distinct lack of inventory space. You have about 60 squares to use, which sounds a lot, but when you consider armour uses 6 squares, a sword 3, a staff 6, a shield 4 or 6, a potion 1, a book 4, you see where this is going. On top of that, it takes quite a while to level up, which means (pending on your character) you have to use magically enhanced items and armour to learn spells and stuff. Personally I only ever use the warrior, who's magic ability is shockingly bad meaning you have to use numerous magic items to learn any decent spells.

On the plus side, the levels themselves are pretty well designed. Whenever you start the game on a different difficulty or character, you get a uniquely different map for each level of the labyrinth. The labyrinth itself is divided into 4 "zones", the dungeon, the catacombs, the caves and hell. Most of the monsters in these levels drop items but most levels will have a "special" monster that drops something decent. Well, somthing unidentified anyway. Whether it's decent pends on your character and what items you already have.

As a whole, I have to say I do love Diablo. No matter how many new games I play, I always find myself being drawn back to it. It's one of those games that, for me at least, has neverending appeal. I can simply throw it on, play for a few hours, and then not even realise where the time's gone, even though I've cleared 12 of the 16 levels without looking at the clock.

Dante's Inferno (PS3)

It’s not very often that I actually read/listen to someone’s review of a game and then buy it. I prefer the age old trick of going into a shop/online/shop/asking people, looking at the games available and deciding for myself if I’d like the game or not. At heart, I’ve always been a platformer, going back to the original Mario games on the NES (yes I’m that cool, I still own a working NES) through to Ratchet and Clank: A Crack In time on the PlayStation 3 (and various others along the way). I never really got hooked into the whole “mass media hype” about games, though I do sometimes cave to pressure, with Soul Caliber 2 being the one time I actually remember doing it (PSM gave it 10/10 so I bought it). I tend to go into a shop, look at the games, read the back and buy them. Then maybe play them a while later, after I’ve finished whichever other game I’m playing. Dante’s Inferno though is almost an exception to this rule. After reading/watching the review by Zero Punctuation (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1472-Dantes-Inferno) I decided to spend some of my precious student loan on a nearly new copy of the game.....ok so it was technically second-hand but I bought it shortly after its release,

Dante’s Inferno is originally a poem based upon the Italian poet Dante's view of hell (inferno being Italian for Hell). The circles relate to the seven deadly sins, with some extras thrown in for good measure. Dante’s Inferno the game is a basic (VERY basic) hack’n’slash game. The game is set in the 12th Century, with you controlling Dante, an Italian with a strangely American accent. You guide him through the 9 circles of hell in search for his beloved Beatrice who was killed and dragged into the underworld after he betrayed her....or something. While travelling through Hell, you are given explanations for the various circles by Virgil, a Roman poet who was condemned for....something or other, whilst all the while rescuing or condemning various others for their sins in return for a collection of souls, which allows you to upgrade your weapon(s) and gain further attacks....most of which you’ll never use. You start the game by defeating various townsfolk(!) with a halberd, and then you take on Death and, after defeating him, gain control of his scythe. This then becomes your main weapon, giving you a light and a strong attack, though you’ll probably only ever use the light attack as the strong attack is almost useless unless you have ample time, as enemies simply attack you whilst you’re winding up to strike. Good development and design there.

The gameplay itself is fairly simply, which I have to say does work rather well for the most part. You button-bash the light attack for close enemies and wipe them out, and use your Cross attack on flying or distant enemies and wipe them out. Having this cross does almost defeat the object of having any other attack as the Cross attack is free and does about the same damage as a scythe attack. Again, good design there(!). Whilst ignoring the cross to some extent, the scythe does have its own features. Pressing R2 allows you to use the scythe like a lasso and drag enemies close to you, allowing you to punish or absolve them, both giving a small amount of experience. Whilst discussing experience, it would be useful here to point out that there actually 2 experience trails, holy and unholy. As you’d expect, each has their own upgrades, giving better abilities, increased scale of the health bar, etc. Whereas with most games this would lead to a different ending or a different character bio or some super ability, in Dante’s Inferno there is none of this. Simply a different set of abilities and attacks. Works for me though, I enjoy seeing my enemies being smashed into the ground with a dizzying array of attacks.

As much as I do enjoy it, there are a couple of things that really do bug me about the gameplay. One of them is Quick-Time Events (QTE). As much as these are useful in breaking up the gameplay and do provide some nicely dramatic cut scenes, they come as a bit of a shock. You’ll be watching a cut-scene and all of a sudden you have to press a button or you die. The first couple of times they appeared I simply stared from my controller to the screen and back trying to work out what the hell had just happened and why I had to do everything all over again. After a while you get used to them and soon realise that when taking on certain enemies, there’s always the same combination in exactly the same order in exactly the same time frame. Which does get slightly old. And boring. The other thing that REALLY bugs me is when taking on one of the demons, a woman with a giant tentacle/snake-thing where her genitals should be, it is IMPOSSIBLE to block one of her attacks. She darts about around you then jumps in and slashes, at which point you cannot block or dodge. No matter how quickly you press the block or dodge button, you will not move until she’s knocked you down and is bouncing around you again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for there being things you cannot control, ‘adding’ to the difficulty, but it does get incredibly annoying on the higher difficulty levels when her slashes take half your freaking health. Although, the MOST annoying thing about this game is the cinematic sequences. I've played through and completely the game on one difficulty in the past, and am re-starting (it's a good game, what can I say?), but for some reason, I am FORCED to watch through ALL of the cinematics. I don't care that Beatrice is annoyed at Dante, I'VE SEEN IT ALL BEFORE!!! Granted, when playing for the first time, the cinematics explain the story, why he's doing what he's doing, etc., but they do get tedious.

As a whole, I do highly recommend Dante’s Inferno. It may not be the most sophisticated of games, it’s no Darksiders or God of War (reviews coming soon), but it does have something of a charm to it. If you want a game that you can put on when bored, cause some mindless destruction, kill some demons of the underworld and see (quite disturbingly) a giant woman spawning killer babies out off her nipple, then this is probably something you might enjoy. By no means is it a game for everyone, but I enjoyed it. And seeing as this is my review, that’s kind of a good thing.

Peace out.
TheIdiotHasLanded