Category: Games

Silly Season

Why has the games industry compressed a year long sales window into three months? Take the 360 for example. From January to end of August the only games I bought were GRAW2, Crackdown and Forza 2 alongside a few Live Arcade titles.

In the September to November months this is the likely list of games I want to buy:

  • Bioshock – bought
  • Tiger Woods 08 – bought
  • Madden 08 – bought
  • Halo3
  • PGR4
  • Orange Box
  • Pro Evo 2008
  • Call of Duty 4
  • Mass Effect
  • Assassins Creed

That is just too many in a short space of time and also leaves out games like Skate and Sega Rally which have OK’ish demo’s but are lost in amongst the flurry. I understand it’s holiday time but surely having so many AAA titles launching in the same period can only hurt there sales. Imagine how crowded it would have been if GTA IV was launching in October? It would certainly make more sense to stagger these releases over the year. Well more sense to me as it owuld give me more time to enjoy each game.

However this is shaping up to be a vintage year for games. The game’s over the last few weeks have been excellent. The Call of Duty 4 beta has been a superb taster for the game, Halo 3 is out on a few days and in October alone PGR4 and Pro Evo 8 are both big big titles. Only caveat with Pro Evo is that the demo is a little odd. It plays faster than previous versions and that can end with real pinball sessions in the box. Still, it’s smoother and a lot prettier than previous versions although no doubt online will still have some issues. It also has a dive button. Finally.

You’ll notice there’s no mention of the PS3. A few of the games above are also out on the PS3 but due to Xbox Live and also friends with 360’s it makes sense to get the 360 versions of the non exclusive games. Heavenly Sword was pretty disappointing and Metal Gear Solid, Little Big Planet and GTA IV are delayed until next year. So what’s left for PS3? Killzone 2 does look very nice and Uncharted – Drakes Fortune picked up a lot of buzz at E3 but both would need pretty stellar reviews to make them purchases. There is also a bigger demo version of GT5 that does promise online racing for up to 16. I’d normally be sceptical of those numbers but Warhawk has been a great multiplayer game on the PS3 with 24 and 32 player games. Server support makes all the difference and hopefully it will come to Xbox Live soon, especially as it’s a paid for service unlike PS3 which is free.

So next up is Halo 3. Considering I was playing Halo 2 over two years after release there’s an argument that I should only be picking up one more title this year. I’ll post up some thoughts on Halo next week…if I get time that is.

Halo 3 Countdown

Not long until I get my grubby little paws on Halo 3 (some already have it). A new video released by Bungie today called Cinema Paradiso highlights the features outside a normal FPS that should keep me coming back to Halo time and time again. The Forge is a map editor that allows the placement of weapons, vehicles, spawn points, turrets and objects to be user controlled. It looks amazing although could take some time to get to grips with.

More impressive is the game replay, film creation and photo creation tools. Call of Duty 4 has a death camera that shows where you got shot from. Halo 3 takes it one step further allowing you to review the entire game, see exactly how you were owned in a game and then save and upload your best bits for other gamers to see. I’d talked about something similar during Halo 2 and it’s great to see something along those lines finally come out.

This video also highlights some great multiplayer action – the hammer looks amazing. Just as well I’ve got a few days off to enjoy the new game.

Old School

As if the deluge of new games wasn’t enough, how do you fancy some old school shoot-em up action? First up is Geometry Wars:Waves. Looks good although the only downside is that you can’t buy this as a separate arcade title – you need to buy PGR4. Is that really a downside?

The other shooters are some console classics from yesteryear – Ikaruga and Rez. Rez can be best described via YouTube. Ikaruga is best described as too fecking hard and that’s not according to Wikipedia. Good to see some more recent classics hitting Live Arcade. Just need a release dat for Sensible Soccer now.

Play TV

Sony’s announcement last week of a TV Tuner for the PS3 was pretty uneventful for me. However this video of the interface has changed my opinion.

The menu’s look excellent and far slicker than normal Freeview boxes. The ability to view recorded content and also live TV on your PSP being streamed from your PS3 was also very impressive. Twin tuners, hard disk recording and HD to 1080p (let’s hope Freeview gets a couple of HD channels) makes for an impressive package when teamed with the PS3.

With the digital switch off almost upon us this could be a big seller for Sony.

Bioshock Demo

It came out yesterday but I only managed to finish the download today. Fantastic graphics and sound but most important is an environment dripping with atmosphere. The demo scratches the surface and actually promises so much more with some cutscenes at the end of the demo that really wet the appetite. A must have purchase for the 360…again. I wonder when the PS3 will finally get a killer title? It’s out next week, single player only and here’s hoping it really matches up to the hype of system shock successor.

The graphics while not only great are also very stylish and totally different to anything out there at the moment. Ok, a bit of an exaggeration, but they are very good. The developers have now released a PDF celebrating the visuals within the game. The post warns of spoilers so I’ve not read the text within the PDF yet, but the images are superb. A great freebie and well worth a look even if your not buying the game.

Forza Designs Update

Couple of belters have been gifted to me in the last few days.

Foe Real Designs

Another Foe Real car and in my opinion the best yet. Photo’s don’t do it justice – it looks amazing in game. The second car looks superb too…

Hunderbolt

The text is great and coupled with a Rangers badge on the bonnet, what more could you wish for. Cheers David (aka Wee Piglet on Xbox Live). Ricky – this car could be yours!!

Gaming Costs

It’s been covered loads of times before, but releasing one car for Forza2 at the cost of 50 gamerpoints sounds expensive. Taking today’s Amazon prices that’s 43p for one car. If Sony applied that pricing model, and the rumours of 1000 cars in GT5 but only 300 included in first purchase are true, that’s an extra £300 to own the full game. Madness. Of course no one is forcing you to buy the content, and the likelihood is that you’ll buy only a few select cars, but the micro transaction gaming market is only heading in one direction and it’s not a cheap one.

Game Quickies

In no particular order…

  • Heavenly Sword demo was released today. It’s quite possibly the largest (almost a gig) shortest (lasts less than 10 minutes) demo I’ve played but afterwards I pre-ordered the game so I guess the demo worked for Sony. The graphics were stunning and this looks like something the 360 could struggle matching. Game on. I know there was some bad press about the gameplay being short (12 hours from memory) but I’d rather have a corking 12 hours than a spun out 30 hour game that I don’t complete.
  • Bomberman is superb on the 360 and well worth 800 points.
  • Played the Moto GP demo on the 360. What was once THE game on Xbox Live is now a shadow of it’s former self. Talk about milking an original format and regurgitating each year, this is little more than a bug fix from last years release.
  • GTA IV – only complete experience on the 360 according to Rockstar themselves. Made me grin thinking back to the exclusives that the PS2 had for so long. Not any more.
  • Had a large room on GRAW2 last night – blind siege with > 6 players is sooooo much more fun
  • Another firmware update on the PS3 – Sony are developing aggresively for the PS3 now and ar catching up fas on the 360. Music playback and X bar available in game for firmware v2.0?
  • Forza Leagues is going well and we have over 30 members with little or no advertising. Biggest issue has been lag within Forza. We struggle to get anyone to host a stable room with more that 6 players which is very limiting. It frustrates that the console model for online gaming is still mostly peer to peer which limits the amount of players you can realistically play with at any one time. I would quite gladly pay extra for server based gaming if it allowed 16, 24, 32 player gaming while limiting lag. I would love Sony to do more with server support in the hope it would encourage Microsoft to move in that direction as well.
  • Resident Evil 5 – another game that looks amazing!
  • The Metal gear Solid gameplay video was very impressive. Some nice touches, great humour and a graphics engine that looked up there with the best around. There was also a nice array of weapons. If Sony have lost exclusivity on this one they will be kicking themselves.

B Day

No, not the Beyonce album.

Not even a low-mounted plumbing fixture or type of sink intended for washing the external genitalia and the anus.

It’s Bomberman day on Xbox Live. David & Ricky D – I expect to see you online at least once this week for a session! To other 360 owners – get this! 8 player online. It can’t possibly fail*

*Obviously it can go wrong and online could suck salty balls and be one of the worst lag fests known to man. The recent Bomberman games have been awful as well, but I’ve kept the faith and hopefully this will be the reward. However, for old time’s sake ….you can’t go wrong, can you?