Livin' in America

I'm back. Turns out that bout of depression was a cold, and I'm a drama queen.

So you've probably heard the news by now. Assassin's Creed 3 is happening. And if you didn't...

There's so much awesome about this, I have nothing
to add but this self-referential statement

Video-Game-Conferencing

Coming to you from a small room, above a Londis, near a graveyard, it's The Return of The Starting Village!

So I'm at university after three months of... well, work but now work is done! It was at Buckingham Palace, which I feel I can probably say now the job is over. Working in a gift shop was FUN.

So the last weekend, I went to Eurogamer, which was really great fun. After an embaressing situation where I may have queued up in the wrong queue for like twenty minutes, I got in and started looking around my first ever games thing.

First thing I saw; Fable 3. Off to a good start it was really great to finally have a go on it, and I enjoyed what I played of it. There was definitely more of an emphasis on story, with the player character having a voice, as well as interactive cutscenes. The art style is similar and I really cannot wait until it comes out. You know the tie in novel is already out in America? It wouldn't wind me up so much, but Lionhead are a British company.

I also had a go on Fallout New Vegas, my other most anticipated game of the year, and it was... It really pains me to write this. I have so much love for Fallout 3. My whole summer was spent playing it to death. And playing on NV should have left me awestruck. But something just seemed off. The graphics looked really quite dated, and the game seemed a bit slow, although I'm hoping this is because it was a demo character. I've still got the game on pre-order, cause I really want my caravan shotgun and binoculars.

Other things I had a go on; Move. The Fight was, ultimately, shit. Punches seemed ineffective and didn't land with any degree of force. There was also three-dee support but it really didn't seem to be working, putting the glasses on just seemed to reduce the blur on the screen. Echochrome 2 was kinda fun, although it didn't particularly use the Move controller in a innovative way. From what I saw of all the Move stuff, it really seemed like they had just recreated the Wii controller, but with knobs on. Literally.

A quick run down of other stuff; Assassin's Creed Brotherhood looks fun, had a quick go, quite enjoyed it, but I'm more interested in the single player. Brink was insanely popular, watched a few people playing but didn't really look like my sort of thing. Dead Space 2 was also popular, but did look really good. Despite not having played the original, the sequel looked intensely atmospheric with some real blistering action sequences and a clever alternative to quick time events.

It was also my first time meeting the guys from the Newb Review, and we all had a real laugh. We recorded a podcast, which you can listen to here. I also sat in on an interview with Ian and the producer of Hunted; The Demon Forge. It hasn't gone up on the site yet, but when it does, you can hear me ask one question about multiplayer. Exciting stuff I'm sure you'll agree.

Overall, I had fun at Eurogamer. Whilst there was not a whole lot of new stuff, there was clearly a lot of effort put into the show. From what I heard, the developer chats were really interesting, and I'd love to be able to go to more of them. I will strive to be there next year, for at least the first and second day.

Well, I'd best be off. I'll be back soon to talk about... I dunno, downloads or something. See y'all when I next get bandwidth!

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!

There Is Nothing for Me To Talk About...

...so this is a non-blog post.

What am I meant to say? That I'm still really excited for Mass Effect 2, and I have preordered it? That I really want my Xbox? That I want a new laptop so I can play Team Fortress 2 which I bought but haven't played yet?

Until something exciting happens to me (don't hold your breath) just stick at the Newb Review. There should be a podcast featuring me going up at some point, and I've got a couple of reviews there as well.

Till then... Yeah, I got nout.

Nothing Doing

There has been a lack of updates here recently. Reason; I've honestly got nothing to talk about. The new laptop fell through, I've been slowing been turning my room into a Coca-Cola advert (and seriously suffering from the effects of this) and hammering my head against a wall because i STILL don't have Torchlight. Curse you, ambiguous god-like entity.

This also has the impact that I've had nothing to write for the Newb Review, so I may wheel out my old review of Grim Fandango. I am probably going to be appearing on the podcast this week so check it out on the site

Finally, my one sentence review of that Tekken game that was on PSP;

You can play as a kangaroo.

Take from that what you will. Now go 'way...

Size Matters

God bless Steam and its digital distribution prowess. We all love 'em.

T'other day, I was perusing the virtual shop of Indie games, and my eyes came to rest on "The Wonderful End of The World", created by Dejobaan Games (bringing you quality video games for over 75 years).

I've been interested in DG for a while now, ever since I heard about the ridiculously named "AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity", and when I checked out their site, I found myself enthralled by the concept of TWEOTW (great acronym by the way)

The backstory to the game, as taken from their website, is as follows; "A joyous trek around the Earth to gather everything you can before it's eaten by a giant fish head".

Yeah...

So the basic premise of the game is this; go around and pick up as much stuff in the level as you can. The challenge comes from your size. You see, your character is made up from the items you collect within the level, and the more items you collect, the larger you grow. This allows you to collect larger items, and as a result, grow taller, and then you can... you see where I'm going with this.

I really like TWEOTW. The art is well done and works well. There's a diverse range of levels, each with individual jokes in them. The props in game are all used in multiple levels, but the effect works well. The music is a real stand-out point for me, it sounds brilliant. Each of the levels has it's own unique track and they are all perfectly suited to their level.

TWEOTW came out in 2007, and it's taken me this long to get around it. Next week I'll be bringing you breaking up to date news about Skullmonkeys.

See y'a- WAIT!

I conducted an interview with the guys from Mode 7 Games the other day, and it's now up on The Newb Review. Check it out here, why not?

See y'all on the new homeworld!

Here Be Dragons...

I dunno. Dragon Age Origins seems okay. I've got a real craving for open-worlds with lots to do in 'em at the moment.
The video slightly pushed me more towards buying it. Apparently obese multi-breasted tentacle monsters sell. Shocking development.

I'm still undecided on the PSP. If I get it, I have to regulate myself. Only in the evenings, after some study. And maybe at weekends. And sometimes over breakfast. And maybe take it to a couple of lectures... Ah.

Okay then. I may (read; slight chance) be putting another video up next weekend, this time featuring me and the other Midnight Marathoners. Crash 3 seems like a good choice. Stay tuned for more on that.

Finally, let's all check out The Newb Review. Because we're not all hardcore.

Stay alert and watchful, y'all.