...it's good, but it's not the messiah.

I think I would like this game a hell of a lot more if it wasn't raved about so damn much. Generally the game is very good indeed but a few issues have nearly messed it all up for me. One is the cover system that, in open areas, works great most of the time but on one mission in an abandoned hospital that has corridors so narrow they havn't been seen since Doom, the cover system pretty much breaks down and Niko constantly takes cover on the wrong walls and the turning speed is so slow that when you're getting shot in the side from branching corridors you're dead before you can turn to face the enemy.

The phone thing is cool but I don't understand why everyone thinks it's so amazing. The mission are generally fun and even though most of them are "go here, kill this dude and steal this thing" it never gets boring for some reason. Most of the time I like the new cops system that makes getting away on foot much easier but in a fast car it can be way to easy to just drive in a straight line really really fast for a few miles, take a few random turns and hey presto the FBI have completly lost you.

Overall though the game is pretty great and is looking to get an 8.5/10 (pushing a 9).

...for those of you who have LIVE you may have noticed that in the occasional times I'm not playing Call of Duty 4 with Ben, David and Matt I've had a go at Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (gotta give it its proper name!).

So here's the review.

In other news, though still gaming related, I've recently been listening to the soundtrack from Final Fantasy VII and I must say I've always loved it, but listening to what I could find on the 'ol Limewire (around 30 tracks...and that's less than half of the whole score) in chronological order is fantastic. If you can get hold of a few of the tracks they're definitly worth a listen, even if you're not a fan of the game. Seriously, collectivly it is easily the best soundtrack for a game ever (I say collectively because some games have better individual tunes, for example I feel that Metal Gear Solid 2's and Halo 3's theme tunes are better than the FFVII theme tune but FFVII has the best overall soundtrack by far).

You can get some free midi files of the soundtrack here if you're really interested although they're not as good as the originals.

Hey, just wondering what 'yall think of my new banner. I made it at the same time as the previous one but someone told me that this one wasn't as good. However, just this minute Ben told me this one looks better so now I'm using it. What's your opinion?

In other news, check out Ben's profile; he has a sweet new banner and blog header AND user picture courtesy of your truely. Take a look! If anyone wants a banner, blog header or anything else done just ask, I really enjoy doing it.

Sean out.

Howdy all.

Just finished watching the Gametrailers exlusive footage of Gears of War 2 gameplay so here's what I think (please note that obviously I havn't played the game and everything in this blog is impressions gathered from early gameplay footage):

Sadly for me, this game actually looks pretty good. Now I despised Gears of War - I just didn't understand what people saw in it, to me it was a graphically superior game to anything else but the gameplay was slow, boring and repetetive and the game had far too many bugs, especially considering it had probably the most patches out of any 360 game. Gears of War 2, however, looks to have taken my thoughts into account, which is strange because pretty much everyone in the world thinks Gears of War had sunshine shining out of it's big Locust ass.

Firstly, the game looks amazing and in comparison you can see that the original Gears had a fairly horrible sort of glaze over the screen all the time (everything looks paled out in daylight and later on everything is glazed over with red ink...for some reason), this has been ironed out though and from what gameplay I've seen the graphics look far more realistic, sort of like the similar graphical upgrade from Ranbow Six: Vegas to Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 where-by very little was done to improve textures and character models but big changes to lighting made the game look much improved.

More in line with gameplay, Gears 2 looks far more epic, now this might be because I've seen the opening level which is based around a huge assault on a large city (who knows, the game might become boring four on four fights like the preivious game was the whole way through) but I find myself doubting that. There are tanks rolling along the ground, multiple helicopters in the air, giant Locust beast all over the place and sky is full of those nasty things that look like giant exploding sperm cells. At one section, although these enemies arn't really playing in the sense that they don't shoot back because they are more there for dramatic effect, you can see literally hundreds of Locuts marching along. There are definetly some new weapons in the game that look to actually hurt and kill the enemies in under 5000 rounds (unlike pretty much every weapon in the original) and there are some new combat moves, for example a downed enemy can be taken hostage and used as cover and then, when used, can have his neck snapped. Most interestingly, the animations look far improved especially in the famous chainsaw-department - instead of the enemies magically standing up or swiveling round to get chainsawed by you as they did in the previous game, the enemies will be killed depending on how they are standing relative to you. For example, and enemy facing away from you will be stabbed through the back, some enemies will grapple chainsaws with you which results in a button-bashing sequence to knock them back and then some enemies will go down similarily to the previos game.

All in all, Gears of War 2 looks like a huge improvement on the original game, I wouldn't say I'm exactly wetting myself for the November release date but if I've got some money at the time I'll definetly be picking this up.

So there you go, I like the look of Gears of War 2, there, laugh at me Ben. But don't say I'm not a fair gamer.

:)

PS. Find the footage at www.gametrailers.com

Howdy all, it's been a while.

Firstly, I've finished Condemned: Criminal Origins in the company of Ben and Tom. Yes, we played it in one night...and a morning, from about 2215 hours until 0400 hours! Yeah, and I played the whole damn game, apart from little bits towards the very end. Yes, it appears a game gets scarier and freakier the longer you play it, the more tired you are and the less you have to distract you around the room. I found that when I played the first few levels on my own at home with the lights on and MSN beside me, the game wasn't scary at all. However, at Ben's house I was practically so on edge that at some bits I was just like "golly, take this Tom - you can play!" except with some stronger language.

The game its self is obviously a fantastically scary game. For that reason alone it gets into my good books because, not since playing F.E.A.R have I felt a game to be truly scary: I never found Silent Hill to be scary, it's just to weird to be taken seriously (I found myself just literally laughing at it most of the time) and Resident Evil hasn't been scary since the 3rd installment. In comparison to F.E.A.R, Condemned has far less jumpier moments (I can still remember when I nearly fell of my chair when that corpse smashed through the office blinds and windows), but what it does do is create a terrible sense of something scary going to happen and this mood is retained consistently throughout the game. This is where I felt F.E.A.R fell done for me; the game followed a perfect trend of combat, "dark corridors, combat, dark corridors, pant-wetting scary bit, end of level, repeat until story is finished". In Condemned however, even something so simple as a cluttered, poorly lit corridor can provoke you to turn the console off, or at least give the controller to a faithful companion. Now this may sound ridiculous, but the terrible feeling of impending fright can really mess you up...and this can only be a good thing.

Gameplay wise, the combat is at first fantastic (for those of you who don't know, Condemned is far more about using everyday industrial and domestic objects to smash your way through clever enemies rather than using the conventional first-person-shooter's firearms) but can get slightly repetitive as the game goes on, for example, later on in the game I tended to find myself throwing blocking out of the window and just going for the mentality that if I hit the enemy enough and quickly enough I'd kill him before he (or she) could do to much damage to me. This is me on "Easy mode" though, so I doubt I would be able to use the same tactic on any other difficulty. That said, the combat is still worryingly satisfying and suitable gory which is always great in a horror game. The only really annoying things in the game are that it can be unsurprisingly easy to get lost in a lot of the environments, especially when they are really dark. The other irritating feature in the game is that everything seems to be based on looking for a particular type of weapon to open a particular type of door. This makes sense if all you've got with you is a metal metro-station sign covered in the blood of psychos and you need to get through a locked wooden door, but being told to go and find a fire axe when you've got a pretty hefty sawn-off shotgun in your hand that could more than easily blast the door into splinters is just plain annoying.

Overall though, if you can find a cheap copy of Condemned somewhere, which isn't difficult at all, I think you should defiantly give it a go...especially if you hate horror games - that makes it even better!

8/10

My next (and much smaller topic, you might be pleased to know) is that I've played a rather dull level of Army of Two while at Ben's the next morning. Now don't get me wrong, I played it the way it's meant to be played; Coop, but it was still an unsatisfying experience. As the game loaded up I was worrying that I'd actually find it fun, or at least funny, but almost sadly I didn't. The level we played took us to those good old Afghans who needed to be completely wasted by our PMC friends. Now, the first thing I noticed about the game was that it appeared to be almost an advertisement for making your own, or joining a mercenary group; you get to be muscular, you get to be cool, you get golden "pimped" weapons that look like something from a Sci-Fi film and all those poor (in the money sense) military bone-heads do is bark orders and then give you huge sums of government cash for killing Arabic folk. What a job! Despite their huge sums of cash though, the Army of Two seem not to have the funding to buy two parachutes between them...as such they ride in a rather suggestive position on a single chute. How...um...manly?

Now I know I'm not supposed to take this game seriously because EA are trying the whole, "look, we're cool; we can make funny games" thing on us (take a look at Battlefield: Bad Company if you want another example) so I'll talk about the game from a gameplay point, rather than moaning about the hidden government message or the military inaccuracies. Right...gameplay...gameplay...what gameplay!? This game plays like a PS2 shooter; I've seen a better cover system in Operation Winback (N64 and PS2)! The shooting is dull and un-involving - basically all you have to do is point and shoot and that's all there is to it, which might be fine as this is a funny light-hearted game (yeah right) but it's just plain boring.

So there you go, Army of Two is a boring and pretentious game.

6/10 from what little I've played.

Finally, just today I saw Iron Man which, especially seeing as Iron Man is a Marvel comic (and I absolutely despise Spiderman, The Hulk and The Fantastic Four), is surprisingly good. I won't reveal any secrets but I didn't really enjoy the ending, however the rest of the film was fairly decent, fun, and definitely worth my £5 and 2 hours time. Strangely for a Marvel comic, the hero in Iron Man has no superpowers (and therefore he wasn't caught up in some experiment or nuclear explosion like every other Marvel hero was) but only a lot of money, much like Batman's Bruce Wayne (a DC superhero, and my favorite). The special effects were really quite special, the dialogue was good enough and the acting, although nothing special, was decent enough for the film. Also, the film was surprisingly funny, especially to an adult audience with most jokes being about business and sex. Most of all, I enjoyed the themes the movie explored, chiefly weapon research and development, weapon sales and the morals of it all. Interestingly, the logo of the protagonist's weapon company, Stark Industries looked very much like the logo of Northrop Grumman, a major fighter aircraft manufacturer (creators of the recently decommissioned F-14 Tomcat series and the now famous B2 Spirit, more commonly known as the Stealth Bomber).

All in all, a decent superhero film that is definitely worth seeing. Yes, even you should see it, Joe.

7.5/10

Yep, I've redone my profile, still keeping with the Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway theme though.

My new profile-style uses much more recent screenshots and has an overall brighter feel. Much less depressing than my previous style! :P

I hope you'll agree that these in-game screenshots are really quite good; perhaps this will be the first game to have truely better graphics than Gears of War (and need I mention that this game is hella more complicated, design-wise, than Gears)?

Regardless of what you think of the game though, post your praise/recommendations/love/hatred/mad ramblings here. All feedback much appreciated.

...Grand Theft Auto IV?

Sure, I'll probably steal...*ahem*...borrow this game off somebody when they're done but to be honest, I don't see what the fuss is about. Obviously I'll HAVE to play it at some point or feel like I've missed out on the most important thing in my young life, and I'll admit that the online play intrigues me (though like most online games it might well suck), but I didn't really like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas all that much.

Grand Theft Auto III was amazing, one of favourite games ever and, although it might be down to the fact I was young, I played that game solidly for months...and I didn't even do any of the missions in the game! Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was similarily very good and with a fantastic sound track to back it up (and the addition of aircraft, which those who know me well will know that I believe that to be a boost to any game) made for a great game. San Andreas, however, will never stand out to me as the perfect 10 that everyone seemed to believe it to be. Although it had an amazing soundtrack like the other titles and that, I'll admit, it was a better game as far as the shooting and scale of the game was concerned, the whole "yo yo well 'ard gangster" theme never appealed to me so I never thought the story line was as funny.

That's just my reasons for not expecting my mind to be blow by GTAIV (although I do have a great soft-spot for Russians) but I'm sure you'll all go crazy at me now for suggesting that I would review San Andreas has a 7.5, but that's my opinion.

Sorry about the overly long title for this blog!

I recently succumbed to the extortionately priced Call of Duty 4 Variety Map Pack which, although they've extended support to the game-modes I like, is a big disappointment.

Firstly, as I've already mentioned, you only get four maps (one of which can only be played on a game-mode nobody goes on), which is no way near the value of 800 Microsoft Points. You might say, "Well how does money affect this review of downloadable content"? But I figure that a very good piece of content should also have good value for money, which this map pack certainly does not.

The first map I played, Broadcast, is easily the best map in the pack. It is set in the television centre from the first mission in the campaign (not counting the SAS prologue). It features a fairly large outdoor car park area and a few outlying buildings, a high roof section on the main building, a huge central room full of office cubicles and televisions and many smaller rooms around the interior of the main building. This map is fantastic for the Counter-Strike style Search and Destroy game mode, with the bomb locations being cleverly placed, one of them below a skylight allowing for defensive fire from the roof. Also, it is a very balanced map that is as easy to defend as it is to attack, and that's the key to a good Search and Destroy map. The only issue with that gamemode is that people tend to avoid the central office room like the plague thanks to its flimsy cover which can make the map feel a little wasted. The map is equally good on Team Deathmatch as well for those who aren't fond of the more tactical gamemodes.

The second of the maps, China Town, is by no means a bad map but it's hardly amazing. The map consists of a small open area that leads into the district and then a really quite random assortment of buildings with an excessive amount of alley ways. There are some wider roads and some courtyard areas but a prolonged stay in those areas demands death. This seemingly maze-like layout (coupled with a very basic map that shows little of the interior of buildings) quickly gets you lost, especially if you play the Hardcore game modes that gives you no Heads-Up-Display. The map does have some fantastic windows perches for defence in Search and Destroy but you better bring some Claymore mines with you or you'll find yourself stabbed in the back frequently. These great spots may be great for defending but they can make the attacking really too difficult and the defending far too easy which can ruin this map for Search and Destroy. Team Deathmatch is far more fun on this map but with the lack of direction that is found in Search and Destroy the map can be even more difficult to navigate than it already was.

The final map (I don't count Killhouse because I'll never probably play it) is Creek, this map looks amazing with its lush vegetation and beautiful waterfall. Snipers will love this map and pretty much everyone else will despise it. The map was promised to include an extensive underground cave system for those who prefer assault rifles and machineguns but in reality this turned out to be a ten meter long cave that leads from one spawn into the creek...hardly the frantic underground arena I was expecting. As a result you're forced above ground, but you better crawl because the moment you pop your head up above the grass you're going to get sniped. Every time. Search and Destroy can be fantastic on this map with some really decent teamwork and use of smoke grenades, but judging from past experiences with all the bone-heads playing Call of Duty 4 this will very rarely happen. In such frequent circumstances attacking is nearly impossible, also owing to the fact that all of the defending snipers know exactly where and what to keep there sights trained on but the attackers have absolutely no idea.

A low point of the pack is that, at the moment, the maps are not integrated with the current game modes and you have to search for them individually, this means you play the same three maps over and over again which can quickly get boring. Luckily, the maps are soon to be integrated into the rest of the game though when this happens there will be lots of people getting kicked from game lobbies for not having the maps. Perhaps this is why they are being integrated, not to help us who have already bought the maps but as an incentive for the people who are yet to buy them. How low.

Value: 4/10

Quality: 7/10

Longevity: 5/10 at present, a probable 8/10 when the maps are seamlessly integrated.

Overall: 6/10

...are pointless and extortionately priced.

Four maps. Three maps that can only be played in Team Deathmatch and Tactical Game Modes. One map that can only be played in Team Tactical and Cagematch. 800 Points. Ridiculous.

First off, for the equivalent of 800 Points I could almost buy the whole of Tekken 5 on PS3 or the new Mass Effect expansion pack.

Secondly, the maps can only be played on a specific "Variety Map Pack Team Deathmatch" gamemode or a "Variety Map Pack Tactical" (where a random tactical gamemode is chosen) gamemode. The forth map can also only be played on a random cycle with all the other maps on Cagematch (one on one deathmatch) and Team Tactical (three on three game with a random tactical game mode chosen). Also, you can only pick these searches if everyone in your party has forked out the 800 Points. So, one map you'll probably never get to play because no one pays Cagematch and with Team Tactical (which is designed to be played with close friends) you'll have to make sure all of your mates have got the maps.

My biggest problem with the maps, however, and this is why buying them would be so pointless for me, is that Hardcore Team Deathmatch (Team Deathmatch with far less health and no HUD) and Hardcore Search and Destroy (Counter-Strike style gamemode based on attacking and defending with no respawns with far less health and no HUD) aren't supported by the new maps and those, along with the occasional game of Team Tactical if the circumstances fit, are the only game modes I play.

What a disappointment.

UPDATE: The maps now support Hardcore gamemodes! Yey! They might still be overly priced, but at least now I've got a reason to play them.

UPDATE: The new maps will now be integrated into normal gamemodes as of next week. Why this wasn't revealed upon release I don't know, I'm sure a lot more maps would've been sold if that was the case.

Recently I've had a sudden urge to play some old games:

Oddworld: Abe's Odyssey - I'm the only person I know to EVER get past even the first hour of the game and I'd love to complete it once more (without the use of Game FAQs)!

Final Fantasy VII - My favourite game of all time; it would'nt hurt to finish it for...what? the 9th time!

Vagrant Story - A much less well known RPG from Squaresoft and one that has a very unique art style and combat system that requires a huge degree of strategy. I've never gto past the half-way point; it's insanely difficult. It's about time I finished it.

Final Fantasy VIII & IX - I've never finished either of these FF installments but I'd love to finnaly complete them (even if they're nothing compared to 7)

Anything else you'd like to recommend? Yes? Well you can find it on Ebay then because I certainly can't be bothered!

So, if I'm not on LIVE for a while you know why, expect some Paul-Style "Retro Reviews" soon...but perhaps under a different title.