Bright Falls? More like DARK Falls!

There are some dumb people out there. I know, Bright Falls is ironic. Just covering my tracks.

So Alan Wake came out this year and although it wasn't a massive hit on the charts, it still was critically acclaimed and received plenty of praise from the press. A couple of weeks ago now, just before my birthday in fact, I picked up the Limited Edition copy off GAME for 20 quid (the same price as the regular edition, for some reason) and started playing some of it. Before I go into that, I really liked the Limited Edition. The book that accompanies it, The Alan Wake Files, is great at filling in the backgrounds of some the characters, and also expanding the story. It's actually written by Clay Steward, the guy that gets killed in the tutorial (spoilers, I guess). It also has a great packaging designed to look like a novel, that the game, book and extras pack all fit into. It's pretty neat.

So to the game. Alan Wake dubs itself as a psychological thriller, but it's basically a survival horror action adventure game. The game mechanic of burning away the darkness is a clever one, and the use of flares, flash bangs and the environment shows that the developers clearly looked at the best way to make the most of the mechanic. The lighting engine in the game works beautifully, as you expect it would, and really highlights some of the great character models on show. At the time of release a lot of people said Alan Wake was to the Xbox what Heavy Rain was to the PS3, and I agree, the narrative, character driven structure of both games is fantastic.

There's a lot in Alan Wake I didn't really get. Half the time, I didn't get what was happening, I just knew that I had to GET AWAY FROM THE SCARY MEN TRYING THE AXE MY FACE IN. The end of the game is a bit of a let down. I know they've released the DLC, which adds on to the end, but I'm still a bit whisky-tango-foxtrot about the whole thing. I'm sure it will be cleared up in the next episode. That's another part about the game that really worked well for me; the TV show structure was a great touch.

In terms of playing the game, I've beaten the game once, and on Hard mode for some reason. I think I'd set it that way for the Achievement at the start, and entirely forgotten about it, which explained why I died so many times throughout. What's even stranger, is that I'm now playing through in Nightmare mode, which is aptly named. The bigger enemies are almost impossible to burn down, and I haven't even got to the ones with chainsaws yet. But this shows that I'm willing to take on bigger gaming challenges. I'm already planning to play New Vegas in Hardcore mode, which is why I intend on having a high Strength stat and a knife at all times.

Wow, semi-regular posting. This probably means I'll disappear in a few days. Or perhaps not. Maybe I'll be back on Friday to talk about XBLA or something...

Hint; I probably will.

See y'all when the darkness is vanquished!

Needs More Shotgun

Still working on posting more regularly. It's getting there. Maybe I'll post twice this month. Who knows?

Bioshock 2 was released, what, in March, possibly? I actually got it on release day for 35 quid, and it's now 7.99 on Amazon. Ah well time makes fools of us all.

Anyway, after playing it for a bit the day after release I remember thinking that it was vastly similar to Bioshock, which at the time, I had just finished playing. It wasn't bad but it seemed kinda samey which, when considering Bioshock, isn't all that bad. I got up to the second Little Sister Gather, and died quite efficiently, which led me to get stuck in a rut of not having enough money to buy ammo, and not enough ammo to kill Splicers. After a couple of attempts I quit out, and wandered off to go to a job interview.

About four months later (having passed the interview and training for the aforementioned job) I decided to pop back into Rapture, to see if anyone had fixed that leak (Spoiler: No)

It's more of the same. The plot might be a bit more convoluted, and some of the characters might be stereotyped, but under the skin, Bioshock 2 is almost a mod of the original. That's not to say that I didn't like it. The weapons started off disappointing, but once I got hold of the double barrelled shotgun, I was kicking ass all over again. The final upgrade to it left me somewhat disappointed. Random electro shocks? If I wanted to electrocute people I'd use Electro Bolt. Although I don't see why I would. Incinerate! is clearly the way forward.

Aside from the weapons and the plasmids, there's something a bit off about Bioshock 2. Nothing ever really felt as scary as it did before. There was a moment when I walked into a toilet and saw an EVE hypo on the floor I picked it up. When I turned around, a Spider Splicer dropped from the ceiling. Normally this would scare the crap out of me, but instead I went "Oh", hit him in the face with my shotgun, and blasted him across the room. It was then I realised I wasn't worried anymore. This was towards the end of the game and I was fairly tough, but still, I felt some of the magic had gone.

Speaking of the end of the game, the final area is a real plateau. The game builds up to a big crescendo and then just flat lines after a cool fight in the dark with a couple of Big Sisters. There's a interesting bit where you play as a Little Sister (Spoilers, I guess), but apart from that the end drags on for way too long.

Overall; I liked Bioshock 2, but I can see why it didn't go down too well. It didn't really try anything new.

Gasp, a new Bioshock Game! What a strange coincidence! Almost like I planned this post!

Immediate impressions; Apart from a dumb name, looks really REALLY promising. Can't wait to see where Irrational Games go with this.

Next time, shootings things in dark forests and being arty, it's Alan Wake, y'all!

Assassin's Need (To Post More Regularly)

It's been well over a month since I last posted and I've been getting myself bogged down in trying to start the next post so I'll summarize quickly;

Back home, got my Xbox, working over summer, secret job, not very content friendly.

Right. Assassin's Creed. Creeds.

I've had Assassin's Creed for ages, ever since I originally got my Xbox, when I was lent it by a friend. After said friend traded in his 360 for a PS3 and didn't ask for the game back, I figured the game was now mine. I'd never got round to playing it, but when I came back from uni, I needed something fun to play. Since Bioshock 2 seemed a bit heavy, I decided to scuttle around the streets of Damascus, introducing knives to people's jugulars.

AC is pretty good fun. The assassinations and the run up to them are all relatively formulaic, although it's still fun to pickpocket people in a busy street. The missions that involve hunting down guards in the street were quite annoying, but relatively satisfying when I pulled them off successfully. The plot wasn't fantastic, and I knew the twist was coming, although frankly, it was pretty obvious. So, I generally enjoyed AC. It reminded me a bit of the old Sly Cooper games. Only with more stabbings and crusaders. Overall thoughts; AC is pretty fun, but a bit aged.

As a result of my enjoyment of AC, I decided to get the sequel. And by decided, I mean I accidentally stumbled on it in GAME for 15 quid.

As it goes, AC2 is pretty good. The character of Ezio is much better formed compared to that of Altair. He develops from a hot-headed youth to a more mature, yet vengeful assassin. Also, he gets a very cool armour set, and has much better finishing moves.

The game is set in Italy, a country I have actually been to (hooray, I guess). I've actually been to Florence as well, so running around the city and climbing the Duomo was quite cool because I've been there. What was really weird is that I've also been to Sam Gimignano, meaning I'm fairly sure Assassin's Creed 2 was designed around me. I am probably an Assassin. Go figure.

Quick notes about AC2; Better, story, better locations, better weapons, better side quests, generally a better version of the first game. Pretty much everything I didn't like was improved, and it had Leonardo Da Vinci, which was cool. Overall thoughts; AC2 is better than AC, and still plays great.

I also got Altair's Chronicles on my iPod touch but the less said about that the beturrrrggghghhblzzzzzzzzz.

**This blogger has been almost killed by the godawfulness that is Altair's Chronicles. And honestly, I gots know idea when he'll be back. See y'all when it next occurs!**

Hobbits, Zombies, and Conventions

Sounds like a a post about cosplayers or something.

Lord of The Rings Online never particularly interested me before, but I've been reading Shamus Young's in-character diary of the game over at The Escapist, and I decided to take a closer look. I'd seen LOTRO before when a friend was playing it, and I really only had one thing to say about it; it's just WoW reskinned. I couldn't see the point in going back to a game which I'd already been playing for a year.
However, after reading the articles, I decided to have a look at the game's site to see if there was a free trial available, which there was. The specs for the game were a tad too high for the Toaster, so I decided to wait until the summer and my new computer to try it.
A few days later, Turbine announced that LOTRO was going free-to-play. Yet more evidence that the universe in fact does revolve around me. This is good news for me. It means I can play LOTRO as much or as little as I want, and also that there is finally a high budget game that's relatively successful that I don't have to pay for. I think my social life can take another hit.

I started playing a bit more of Nazi Zombies on the iPod recently, primarily because I have nothing else to play at the moment. I didn't realise that Treyarch had released Shi No Numa, but as it turns out, it was there ready to be downloaded. It's impressive that they've managed to squeeze the whole map (and all the weapons) onto the handheld, but the game still runs perfectly. Hellhounds are still a bitch, mind. In Apple related news, where's my fourth-gen iPod touch, Steve? HUH?

It's E3 next week, and normally I'd be excited, but for the third year in a row, my exams are getting right in the way. This year, I'm sure my uni has planned my exams around the show, with one every day starting on the 14th right up until the 17th. I swear, one day I'll be able to stay up all night watching live coverage of games I don't really care about. I'm only looking forward to a few things at E3; MI2 SE, New Vegas, Fable 3, the potential Half Life 3 announcement and the cost of Natal. I'm also kinda interested in the 3DS, but mainly from a tech point of view.

Until next time, I'll see y'all at the aftershow.

Sick Note

Not dead! Still not dead!

I have been ill however, which is why it has been over two weeks since I last updated. I went home last weekend (a trip which lasted until Wednesday) but felt so bad most of the time that my only gaming related activity was to change my Xbox display pic from my avatar looking confused to a gun-toting fedora-wearing Vault Boy. In the meantime, I rolled around on my bed, clutching my stomach, looking forward to the day when most of my body is artificial and illness just requires a reboot.

As a side note, being ill is now a rather strange experience for me. Last Thursday, I spent most of the morning in bed with a fever, and it was a rather odd feeling that I knew exactly what was wrong with my body. I could tell you that pyrogens had raised the set point of my core body temperature in the hypothalamus and so my body was desperately trying to reduce heat loss, which was why I felt so cold. I'd imagine it's kind of how a game designer might feel when looking at a game. Except more ill. Unless the game was Daikatana.

Been playing Guerrilla Bob and Minigore recently. I may do a Newb Review for them because I haven't submitted any content for a while. Eyes peeled.

I'm gonna have so little money and so many decks of cards. I should learn to play poker or something to justify these purchases. Might even win some of my money back.


I probably won't update for a while. My exams are literally just around the corner (my first one being this coming Friday) so I'm gonna be revising hard until about the 20th of June, which seems like an age away right now. But when that time comes, it's gonna be gaming Nirvana for me.

See y'all in the summer!

Hey Riddle Riddle, The Bat In The Middle

Just like the Riddler, me. We have the same first name, so I'm halfway there. Next I plan to commit overly complicated crimes, although since I have no nemesis, there's no real point.

It's no great secret that I'm a fan of comics, and although my main graphic literature of choice is normally of the Marvel persuasion, I was quite interested in Batman: Arkham Asylum when I saw it in a trailer. My main attraction was that the Joker looked like a fantastic character, with all his craziness and fantastic voice work. I wasn't a big fan of Dark Knight Joker, but that's just me.

I picked up the game fairly cheap second hand over Christmas and played a little bit of it, fighting random goons and having fun introducing peoples' noses to Batman's shoes. But this time around I decided to knuckle down and get to work putting the Joker behind bars and solving the mystery of Arkham Island.

Batman is a well structured game. It merges story and gameplay better than most I've seen. The combat system is fantastic, and although I might be useless at stringing together combos, it's easy to use and when you really get to grips with it and are knocking down enemy after enemy, it feels well made. Having said that, I'd love to have a go at the original rhythm action beat-em-up style combat. Just for a laugh.

The riddle system was funny and I really enjoyed looking for the answers to some of them, although others were clearly designed to show off the locations that the developers had made. This said, this is exactly the sort of thing The Riddler might do himself, a point well made in one of my favourite podcasts. A part of the game that disappointed me was the lack of any really good boss fights. None of them were particularly bad, but for a superhero game I expected some better showdowns. Maybe in the sequel.

Batman: Arkham Asylum. Great game, great story, great combat, great voice acting. Buy it.

Finally, wrote a piece for the Newb Review the other day, which I haven't for a while. Read it soon mind, because it's a time sensitive piece of semi-satire, which sounds very pretentious. Just go read it.

See y'all when I next sign in!

Deliverance 2277

Point Lookout is big, dark, moody and disgusting. It's also pretty good.

It's with some what of a heavy heart that I headed into the Swamps of Maryland, as it was to provide the final chapter of my Wasteland Adventure. Sure, I can go back and play as my evil character but it won't be the same as charging around the Wastes with my Stealth Armour and my Shady Hat, electrocuting Super Mutants.

Anywho, after installing the add-on, I got the obligatory message on my Pip Boy telling me to get down to the docks to hop onto a steamer, after paying 300 caps for a ticket. That bastard Tobar. I mean I could totally afford it, but it's still a lot.

After riding the steamer all the way to Point Lookout, I began exploring the surroundings, as is the style, and got used to the area.

Point Lookout is REALLY creepy. I mean seriously, it's pretty much always grey, and when the sun goes down, the trees block out a lot of the light, meaning you can barely see whats around you. It's not a good area if you've got a cowardly stealth character like me. The fact it's a swamp means having to cross several rivers to get around, meaning I have to break my cover. I don't like being attacked. I like attacking people from the shadows.

The main story is actually really good. The first "defend the house" mission is enjoyable, and pretty fun when you can use a bottlecap mine to fling your enemies into a balcony. The hallucination sequence was very strange and didn't really work for me. I didn't really get the point, but it gets better when you are attacked by a group of Tribals whilst attaching a radio transmission blocker to a Ferris wheel.

When the Tribals showed up, they actually killed the only trader in Point Lookout, which I felt bad about, but I felt better when I liberated all of her inventory from her locker. You know, so it wouldn't go to waste. The main quest wraps up when you can either kill one jerk or a different jerk. In the end I decide to kill the slightly less likeable jerk, but only cause the other jerk was slightly British.

The end result? A microwave gun, which depressingly didn't fire microwaves at people, and 100G more gamerscore.

Overall, I couldn't help but be a tad disappointed with Point Lookout. Others had really praised it for being such a fantastic new area, but I couldn't help thinking that there really wasn't that much to do (excluding the main quest, and that good one with the Chinese Agents and the Sub) But still, it got me to Level 30, and made me better at killing things when I'm standing still, so that's... a benefit is suppose.

So until New Vegas comes out, my Wasteland roaming adventures will be put on hold. I'm sure the Brotherhood will handle the Super Mutants fine without me, since my character is headed to New Vegas. YES I KNOW THAT THE CHARACTER IS DIFFERENT.

Next time, riddles, mutated henchmen and batarangs! See y'all at the Asylum!