Suits You Sir - Crysis 2 XBOX 360 Review

There can be no doubting that Crytek's sequel to their PC game is a beautiful piece of work. I don't think I've ever played a videogame with such amazingly complex and stunning vistas, and this standard is maintained throughout the game. The scene where a building collapses right next to you has to be seen to be believed.

The background story to Crysis 2 is standard Alien invasion guff and strikes me as desperately similar to fellow sci-fi shooters of this generation such as Halo and Gears of War. Where Crysis 2 eclipses these two great series, however, is with its variety.

The USP of Crysis 2 is the suit: it's a powerful, flexible bit of kit, and fittingly drives the story. Boasting a number of useful abilities, it gives the player the chance to evaluate different tactical options throughout the game, meaning you really do play it your own way.

The key abilities are cloak mode and full armour. Strap one of these babies on and for a short time you're either invisible or practically impervious. Of course there's a catch: both abilities use a lot of energy (especially whilst moving) and running out of power at the wrong time can be extremely unfortunate for you and the main character, Alcatraz.

Other powers include advanced jumping and running speeds, a nifty night vision and a useful trick of being able to power kick and punch enemies. Naturally the weapons in the game are also of vital importance with the usual range of shotguns, machine guns, pistols and rocket launchers. In another addition, each has it's own variation of sight (or fire mode) that can be easily adjusted in game and the suit itself can also be upgraded. Collecting nano energy left by dead Ceph aliens is your currency and this eventually unlocks some neat additions to the suit's powers.

Alas, Crysis 2 does indeed have some of the reported graphical glitches, which were nonetheless infrequent enough not to hamper my enjoyment of the game.

But overall I found it to be a playable, exciting, tense shooter and, yes - whisper it quietly - I think it's better than Halo Reach.

Well it's been over a month now since I've posted on my blog and whilst I'm working on a few new interesting items, I fear I won't be able to update it quite as often as over the last year or so. A combination of increased work commitments and (hopefully) more articles for Retro Gamer Magazine has meant that I don't have as much time these days for my blog. Please call in whenever you can, though, as I will still put up my thoughts on whatever XBOX 360 or retro game I've been playing in addition to the odd Spectrum and XBLIG developer interview.

Next up within a week or so will be my review of the 360 game, Crysis 2.

Cheers
JD

Return of the Living Dead: XBOX Dead Space 2 review

The original Dead Space was the second game I played on the 360, and remains one of my favourites. A textbook example of survival horror, it eschewed all-out action in favour of building tension and shocking the life out of the player. For its sequel, released earlier this year, Visceral took the small number of criticisms of the original on board and produced a brilliant sequel. Unfortunately some quarters criticised the slowburn approach mentioned above, when really they should have been playing Call of Duty instead if they really thought that. However this doesn't serve to detract from Dead Space 2. I had huge fun once more playing this game and found in the main that the small improvements had a big impact.

Poor old Isaac. After his terrifying ordeal on the Ishimura, he's now woken up on another futuristic nightmare, this time a moon-based colony know coloquially as The Sprawl. With no memory of the past three years, he's arisen just in time to witness another necromorph outbreak, only this time the nasty critters have a plentiful supply of human victims to transform. This is all the excuse the developers needed to up the action quotient of the series, with masses of enemies attacking Isaac at every opportunity. Aesthetically The Sprawl looks awfully similar to the Ishimura once you get past the living quarters and Church of Unitology (chapters 2, 3 and 4), save a few breathtaking shots of the station and Saturn outside; however, the few subtle changes and set-pieces make it a wholly different experience.

Firstly, the Zero G has been radically - and sensibly - overhauled. Gone is the directionally confusing jumping from one surface to another; Isaac can now float in any zero-g environment and propel himself thanks to the aid of twin boosters on his RIG. This makes for a more practical and playable game whenever gravity is absent. Secondly, there are none of the first games' annoying cannon levels, especially the asteroid blasting mini-game: I, like many, found this section hugely irritating. Thirdly is the inclusion of the re-wiring mini-game, where Isaac has to quickly re-connect panels in order to progress which is a strangely satisfying experience. And finally, some of the new action set-pieces in DS2 are stunning. My particular favourites: the battle on the fast moving train where Isaac must make his way through the train, battling necromorphs until he discovers there's a carriage missing...and the destructive end to this. And in another breathtaking segment, Isaac is casually strolling along a corridor before the next thing you know he's in outer space...

With the addition of some new enemies (including the nasty range attack of the Spitter) and weapons, Dead Space 2 is as a sequel should be: familiar enough to be easy to approach to anyone that's played the original yet different enough to present a new challenge to the player.

Jdanddiet's Dead Space 2 tips

--Always keep a couple of saves in reserve. DS2 throws a lot of enemies at you and you really don't want to be caught short of ammo or health packs.
--There are too many weapons to own first time around. Stick to 2 or 3 and upgrade them accordingly. Un-upgraded weapons will be useless by the final few chapters.
--Get the spitters early. Their deadly acid not only drains HP but also severely restricts movement. Makes a great sound effect though!
--The ripper is a super weapon to have when things get up close and personal. Which is often.
--Ammo is scarcer than in Dead Space. Always hunt around for more, usually by going in the opposite direction you are supposed to be going!
--Upgrade your suit as soon as you can, ostensibly for the armour improvement, but also to get more inventory slots. Going back and forth to collect items is not fun.
--I didn't use stasis much during combat in the original DS. With the number of enemies DS2 chucks at you, it's invaluable. Don't forget it!

JD is resting...

Hello Darkness my Old Friend: XBOX 360 Review: Alan Wake

To anyone over the age of 30, the term "interactive movie" will send shivers down your spine. Memories of horrific minutely-interactive FMV games from the early 90's when CD-rom was in its infancy and developers struggled to harness to good effect its massive storage power scarred
even the most thick-skinned gamer, wowed at the time by impressive tech demos and screenshots.

These days things are a bit different; games are able to offer far superior visuals that more closely match real life than ever before, and offer a fully interactive world to boot. So the only necessary requirement is a plot that simply doesn't serve as a device to forward the game from one shooting gallery to the next. Alan Wake tries manfully to fulfill this requirement.

Alan Wake was a long time coming to the 360 and as a result anticipation for the game was high. This is usually followed by disappointment, but as I have only recently become interested in the XBOX 360, I took the game purely at face value. And alas, this still incurs some disappointment...

Playing the eponymous writer, your task is to locate and rescue your missing wife, Alice. The game is a complex maze of dreams and the turbulent, writers block wrought, mind of Wake as he wanders through the small town of Bright Falls, chased insessantly by the "Taken", normal people possessed by The Dark Prescence, a malevolent being whose sole purpose appears to be to torment the struggling novelist. The Taken hate the light, which is not so much of an advantage as most of the game takes place during the night!

Likes

1.The Plot
OK, it can be construed as meaningless nonsense, but at least it keeps you on your toes with a few twists.

2.Combat
Simple and easy to get the hang of, despite the dual dynamic of flashlight plus weapon.

3.Atmosphere
Wake has it in bucketloads. Whenever the Taken are about to attack the area takes on a windswept, ethereal quality which really cranks up the tension.

4.Music
Sparse, but highly effective. The tunes at the end of each episode (Nick Cave!) are also very apt.

5.It's 3rd Person
I'm no FPS hater but always prefer this perspective.

6.The Poltergeists
I thought this was a really neat addition - inanimate objects would suddenly take on a life of their own and start flinging towards you. Creepy.

Dislikes

1.The Plot
I really struggled to know what was going on sometimes. I think it was unnecessarily complicated. But then maybe I was just not paying attention enough. Now, where was I? Oh yeah...

2.Combat
It never really varies a great deal, neither do the enemies. There are very few weapons as well.

3.My guns and torch kept getting taken off me!
Just put them in your blinkin' pocket, Wake!

4.The general gameplay could have done with a bit more complexity.
Alan Wake is hardly a challenging game but considering the effort that has gone into the plot, I think a bit more brain-action would have fitted well.

5.Wake gets knackered really quickly.
...and usually has to pause for a breather just as some nasty is about to stab him in the back...

Conclusion
We shouldn't be too harsh on this game as it tries to do something different from the myriad of FPS or TPS that exist today. By essentially designing the game around a plot, it's a fine effort at
building an effectively eerie atmosphere that anyone brought up on Resident Evil and the like will certainly find considerable enjoyment from. As it can be picked up really cheaply now, I'd heartily recommend it to any fan of Survival Horror games.

XBOX 360 Recap: Battle of the Backlog

It's been six months now since I first experienced life after retro with my XBOX 360. So how have things gone with my new machine?

My first game with this modern technology was Halo 3, having just played the first 2 games on the original XBOX. Halo 3 seemed more of the same to me, but I was wowed by the fancy graphics and hugely enjoyed the experience.

Halo 3 had cost me £1.25 from a charity shop and I was quickly into my stride, trading in a load of old PS2 and XBOX games at my local CEX so I could purchase some of their exhaustive range of (mainly) competitively priced 360 games. The first wave of purchases included Dragon Age, Assassin's Creed, Halo Reach, Dead Space, Left 4 Dead, Mass Effect, Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper and Batman Arkham Asylum and I'm slightly ashamed to say some of these remain totally unplayed...

Yet from this list came Dead Space and this remains the game that has impressed me the most even now. Firmly entrenched in single-player (I'm not too keen on MP), this for me has been the outstanding experience so far on the Xbox 360. Simultaneously, I dabbled with Singularity, a FPS that begins in stunning mediocrity before redeeming itself with some Half Life 2-esque gameplay and a nicely ambiguous conclusion. These were both completed, but Left 4 Dead left me for cold (too geared towards MP for me I fear) and I'm currently on my 4th attempt at Mass Effect - I have only persevered because so many people rate this game so highly. Dragon Age I also tried to get into, but Bioware's fancy graphics didn't hide a creaking combat system that quickly became tiresome. It got traded, as did Dead Rising which again seemed too geared to multiplayer for me.

As such a lover of the Resident Evil games, it wasn't long before I was playing the 5th game on the 360, and this too was an enjoyable experience, despite some erratic AI and your character's inability to walk and shoot at the same time. Darksiders was another recommended game, and another that I persevered with for a while. An on-rails flying section finally tested my patience too far, however, and that got ebayed a few weeks ago.

I was still acquiring games, mostly galvanised by cheap prices. I would determine not to buy anything, only to spot a wanted title to be on sale for a fiver or so, and another game would be added to the list. Deadly Premonition, Fallout New Vegas, Gray Matter, Jericho, Wet, Sega Megadrive Collection, Might and Magic Dark Messiah and Nier all fell into this category, and with the exception of a brief foray into New Vegas, remain unplayed.

So what else did I actually play to any degree? Well, the XBLA title Braid came highly recommended from friends and the internet alike, so I completed that, although never bothered with the seemingly impossible speed runs. Bulletstorm is a manic and amusing shooter that I got a fair way into before losing a game save, so I must try that again some day; Halo ODST I enjoyed as well, it being just different enough from the other Halo games to engage and entertain. More recently I've completed a brace of big-hitters in Halo Reach and Gears of War and am currently taking as break from all the frantic shooting action with a (so far) pleasing experience in the company of Alan Wake.

So what does the future hold? I've been quite strict on myself recently, avoiding ANY purchases knowing my backlog that sits at home. The new Warhammer game, Gears of War 3 and Dungeon Siege 3 have all been games I've wanted, but with the prices of these games only going one way, I've seen no reason to buy just yet.

So what's next? After Alan Wake I'll see how I feel. If I fancy a return to shooting action games it may well be another go on Bulletstorm; or perhaps Crysis 2, Vanquish or Gears of War 2. RPG's are well represented in the to-play pile with Fallout 3 and New Vegas, Mass Effect 1/2, Rise of the Argonauts and Dark Messiah. Alternatively I could finally take the dip with Red Dead Redemption, Gray Matter, Arkham Asylum or Deadly Premonition.

But more likely it will be a sequel to my favourite game so far on the 360, a sequel I bought 3 months ago for just £9.99 and am understandably eager to play - Dead Space 2.

The Spectrum Covertape War Part 4: Game Over

As the commercial life of the ZX Spectrum slowly ebbed away, the three main Sinclair magazines got more and more desperate in their attempts to shift units. The tape was now paramount, although both Your Sinclair and Sinclair User kept commendably high page counts compared to Crash Magazine’s massively reduced written content. Tape boxes were always included now; no more cutting the inlay out and ruining your magazine, not that anybody cared much for the paper element anymore.

Crash’s descent began early as issue 90 (July 1991), with number 26 of their “Presents” tapes representing something of a nadir. One serviceable, but six-year old game (Hewson’s Dragontorc), one, again very old, but average game (Design Design’s 2112ad) and a slew of demos, budget games and homebrew efforts spread over 2 cassettes was a poor offering, despite superficial good value. The cover price of Crash had also now risen to £2.99 despite its anorexic content which meant you could get a pretty decent re-released budget game for the same amount.

Sinclair User fared somewhat better that year with issue 108 continuing the “Six of the Best” theme, and whilst the name remained inaccurate, it at least offered some gaming goodness in the form of the excellent shooter Bedlam from Go!, supported by Ocean’s Gutz and the elderly, but still playable Dynamite Dan from Mirrorsoft. Your Sinclair bumped up their efforts and nicked one of Ocean’s compilation titles to boot: The Magnificent Seven featured every month and mixed up demos with original and ex-commercial titles. Issue 64 is probably the best if only because it contains the wonderful Bumpy by Loricels, ably supported by Spindizzy and the Street Fighter-esque beat ‘em up Human Killing Machine.

The end was in sight, though, and Crash was the first to go with issue 98 of April 1992, Crash Presents Tape 34. Its final cassette perhaps summed up it’s half-baked attempt at covergames: Mind Games’ reasonable but little-known puzzler Pi-R Squared; Quicksilva’s pretty, but frustrating Glider Rider; a demo of an obscure budget game entitled Biff and the obligatory Poke Zone.

Sinclair User, after the 12 pack of issue 112 in December 1991, settled down to a mere eight programs for the majority of 1992. As many of these eight consisted of music demos, pokes, tape magazines and utilities, the title was a bit disingenuous, and the quality of games noticeably poorer. It was also painfully obvious how the page count had been drastically cut as well, with the last few issues coming in at under forty pages. Cheap text adventures and game designer efforts were common as budgets were slashed thanks to a fast-disappearing readership. Perhaps even more tragically, titles that had appeared on previous covertapes began to re-surface, a sure sign that the magazines were struggling to fill their strips of tape every month.

Your Sinclair braved it alone for a few more months, but in the end even they faced the inevitable, and the penultimate issue, number 92 from August 1993, contained a tape quite clearly aimed at a younger audience. A demo of Playdays by Alternative, a limp shoot ‘em up and CRL’s seven-year old graphic text adventure Bugsy completed the games, with a geography program and music demo thrown in to boost the total count. An article in the magazine detailing how to play Spectrum games on an Amiga and other superior formats just about summed up the state of affairs and it was a very sad end, not least to the magazines that gave all Speccy owners such entertainment over the years. Of course, thanks in no small part to websites such as World of Spectrum and the thousands of fans all over the world, we now know the computer lived on; but this scenario would have been impossible to visualise back in 1993.


The Spectrum magazine covertapes are often held up as all that was wrong in the Spectrum’s final few years; yet conversely, many a Spectrum gamers’ best memories come from the titles featured on them. Whether it be the bat-and-ball action of Batty, discovering old classics such as Chaos or Beach Head or the endless replaying of one-level demos of Ikari Warriors, Midnight Resistance and Robocop, at the time there was no internet therefore no on-line community spreading remakes, or demos and original games to download and sample. A cassette mounted on the cover of a magazine was the best way of trying a game for yourself before shelling out your pocket money or for getting cheap entertainment to go along with your monthly fix of Speccy news.

And for that, we should be thankful.