The most surprisingly good game of the year award goes too.............

Castle crashers!

I recently took a day off work to catch up with some studying for my MCSE, but instead i ended up spending 18 hours at a friends house playing his most recent XBL game Castle crashers.

It was definitely with out a shadow of a doubt time well spent, this game is fantastic! By all means the greatest example of what downloadable games have to offer over normal retail games, castle crashers is money well spent and i was so surprised with the gameplay, the visuals and the general awesomeness of the game that i had to play through it 3 times before i left. All though the storyline is rather short and completed quite easily within 3 hours and bosses aren't at all difficult, this game was a fantastic play through that was hours of fun. I think that games like Castle crashers, braid and Flower are definitely what developers creating downloadable games need to aspire to. I mean to be honest there is not really a great deal of fantastic downloadable gamesoneither of the 3 consoles stores, but it is gradually getting better with games like Castle crashers.

I recommend castle crashers to anyone with a 360 honestly money and time well spent.

Last night i was officially the drunkest i have been in a hell of a long time :p

I got home at 2am and i decided to play playstation to calm my head. Has anyone tried to play megaman 9 drunk, its horrible. Such a mess with the mind, just the pace of the game. Honest to god don't play megaman drunk its no fun it just hurts more.

Ow my head.

Street Fighter is back with a bang and a hadoken!

My street fighter 4 review:

Street fighter 4 is finally here!

After waiting so long and reading and watching every possible piece to do with the game, we finally now get to play it and pass judgement.

As the back of the case says, the No.1 fighter is back, yes and back with avengence. Street fighter lives up to its predessecors and goes for broke with trying to out do them at the same time.

Straight away as you put the game in you feel immersed with a long intro cutscene with brilliant fighting scenes in a fast paced Japanese animation that looks great.

As you then come to the menu screen you can then select from a variety of modes to play:

Arcade mode (General main story line.)
Versus mode (Face of with another player or CPU.)
Challenge mode (Time trial and survival modes.)
Network battle mode (Online mode.)

Arcade mode:
Arcade mode is the main part of the game, with you pitting your wits against other characters in a fight to reach Seth. In arcade mode you will face 8 other opponents in different rounds and locations around the globe. With 16 characters from the start and another 9 characters to been unlocked SF4 has a variety of different fighters with all the originals and brand new characters to play with. Arcade mode starts of with an anime intro video, depending on which characters storyline you are following. The anime tells the story of how the character is involved with this a fighting tournament and their goals and reasons for entering although the cutscenes do not go into great depth and are quite hard to follow. Although interesting and a nice idea, the anime falls short of being great with the videos being very, very short and quality of the anime being below par compared to other animes.

There is at least six different difficulties with arcade mode ranging from seriously easy to extreme hard. Intraditional street fighter fashion even on normal or below easy street fighter is tough, with clever AI opponents, that will outwit your every move. If new to street fighter, you will have a tough time getitng to grips with controls and basicway of play, but fans of the series will feel right at home. As you go through arcade mode all characters eventually face a rival which ties into the storyline, some of these characters and rival fights lead to characters being unlocked after finished arcade mode.

New boss Seth, depending on the difficulty is a handful and a bit of a pain. Depeding on how many rounds you set arcade for Seth has a finally form where he doubles in attack and defence and also gains new powers and moves. He is though a nice addition to the game, unlocking him to play with though is a tough job and you will spend plenty of time trying. After defeating Seth, there is another anime end cutscene that is again very short and does not help with trying to understand the storyline.

The story of SF4 is hard to grip and all of the anime cutscenes aren't really helpful at all. Unless you read the booklet you won't really know what is going on.

Versus mode:
Versus mode is your standard two player element where two player can go against each other to duke it out. You can also face the CPU and practise with all the different difficulties. Plus you can also watch the CPUs fight themselves in CPU Vs CPU, here people new to SF can watch and learn.

Challenge mode:
Challenge mode consists of two different modes of play, with different difficulties. First of all there is the time attack mode, in which you have to defeat a series of opponents with out being KO in a certain time limit. As you progress there will be more opponents to be beat in shorter time spans, also there is three difficulty settings in which you can set the opponents.

The next mode is the survival mode in this mode, you are set into one round matches and you have to defeat as many CPUS as you can, you get graded on your performances and how many CPUS you beat.

Network battle:
With nearly all new fighting games, Street fighter 4 has online capabilties so you are able to fight against other people. In network battles, you can choose between a ranked match and a player match. Ranked matches are matches against other people for points, you can set different options such as rounds and skill levels to suit your level of skill. Depending on your win or loss you gain points and lose points, so practise is usualy advised there is some pretty tough players out there. There is also a ranking table and leaderboard.

Player matches are matches that are not ranked and are usual just for people looking to play against another person, or to practise. This mode is more fun and less competative, you again can change rounds, time limits and skill levels to suit you. As you play and win, you gain titles and icons on which you can edit your profile.

There is also a training mode in which you can fight a still opponent and practise combos and specials with all the different characters.

Street fighter 4 visually looks amazing withfantastic manga drawncharacters.It fits right in with the games of today and is really easy on the eyes. Ultra combos and finishes look supurb.

The only bad really of street fighter 4 is the storytelling, but really at the end of the day you won't care what is happening in the story you will just be looking forward to hadokening! the next opponent.

Street Fighter 4 is a fantastic examples of games living up to reputations it is simple plain fun for everyone, it fails to dissapoint in all aspects. It is well recommended and just like Street fighter 2 i am sure people will still be playing it in 10 years time i certainly will!

Dumassed2k

http://uk.gamespot.com/ps3/action/streetfighteriv/player_review.html?id=649339&tag=player-reviews;continue;1

Its been a while.....

My longly not anticpated return has arrived. I thought i would try my hand at this again, since i've been gone i have been writing alot of review and i thought that maybe coming back to gamespot would be a good idea. I have not logged in for some time now, last time i logged it Gears of war was top of the Gamespot most watched list. Jesus that is a long time ago. But i am back and here to stay, with new games to review and play and generally talk about. Should all be good, so please stick around and check this space.