Borderlands 2

Next year, I'm not going to follow such a strict format on this blog. I don't feel happy reviewing games I haven't completed, even if I've put more hours into them than many games I actually finished. I guess this is stating the obvious, but I didn't finish Borderlands 2.

You know what I did finish? Borderlands 1. Every single mission in the main campaign, all of Zombie Island, all of General Knoxx bar Crawmerax and all of Robot Revolution bar the end boss. I didn't finish that end boss as a load of mid-bosses regenerated on my way to it, and I didn't play any of Mad Moxxi as it seemed more focused on multiplayer. And those two things haunted me throughout the sequel.

When I played the original, I hadn't played much in the way of RPG's and Borderlands was the game where a lot of RPGS stuff suddenly clicked with me. Grinding, levelling, skill trees- a whole new world opened to me, and I don't know what appealed more to me, the game or a previously inaccessible genre opening up to me.

People said that playing solo was a slog, but I didn't notice that at the time, but it leaps out at me this time. I've seen so many reviews compliment the multiplayer, and I can't help but feel that was the problem. If I had someone helping me, I wouldn't have been dying every few minutes or so concerned about regenerating mid-bosses.

If I'd have stuck to my original class of Soldier rather than Gunzerker, I might have enjoyed it. If the recent patch would have toned down the regenerating enemies, I might have enjoyed it. But I didn't enjoy it, and the original- that game I spent 70 hours levelling up to 45- no longer seems my favourite game of this generation.

Lollipop Chainsaw

I really enjoyed everything I played by Japanese developer Suda 51, but his last game, Shadow Of The Damned seemed a real unexpected treat.

Unsurprisingly Lollipop Chainsaw feels like a similar game, just without the contributions from (Resident Evil creator) Shinji Mikami, because that's what it is. And while Chainsaw feels a shallower game without Mikami's contributions, you do appreciate Suda's wild imagination & flair.

This game's equivalent of Johnston is Rick, your boyfriend's head, decapitated to prevent spread of zombification. Personally, I thought James Gunn's dialogue between Rick & Juliet was a game highlight.

I can't deny it feels a little short, the combat is a little basic & some of the arcade mini games were frustrating. But it's got charm & replay value- I was determined to try and save all the students and get the unlockables. Oh and a kick ass soundtrack- the most frustrating of those mini games was aost enjoyable set to Human League's "Empire State Human".

Suda 51 still works better as a collaborative designer, but is still capable of shining when solo.

7.0/10

Hotline Miami

At a time when violence in America seems to be reaching fever pitch, it seems video games are going to get a lot of bad press. Hotline Miami is the kind of game that seems like the press is looking for as a scapegoat; before the killings, the games champions would describe it as a "murder simulator".

This is incredibly misleading; the game play feels far more like a puzzle game- it constantly feels like you're on a roll in a game of Tetris, and its only after you realise the blocks are made of severed limbs.

The points after the gameplay sections set the tone; they constantly seem to be making you question if what your character is doing is real and if so, why they are doing it. There's a section late in the game where I realised that I was killing characters I may not even needed to have killed to complete the level. I still slaughtered everything that moved.

Even though you will likely die hundreds of times during the game, it doesn't feel hard, or at least not unfair. Levels are generally short when you've got the feel of them and checkpoints are on each floor of the level.

I got hooked to HM, and am still playing it after completion to try and get more of the secrets. The music, aesthetics and gameplay compliment each other, making on of this years best games and one deserving of the hype and accolades it has received.

10/10.

Darksiders 2

Apart from a tough boss early on, I generally enjoyed the first Darksiders game and could imagine future games in the franchise being excellent.

I played through the first few hours of the sequel in a bit of a trance, until about seven hours in, I had a horrible realisation: I hadn't enjoyed a moment of the game. It's not exactly bad; just that it had been a repetitive grey trudge.

Combat and platforming seemed marred by so-so controls and ropey camera angles; there seems a lack of variety in the environments and weapons either seem inadequate or overpowered.

Towards the end, things seem to click but way too late. I can't help but feel the pressure on the studio to make a game that would save the company comes across here; there's a lack of polish and no real sense of fun. I can't help but feel it might be a bit late for that truly great Darksiders game.

6.0/10

Stacking

It was only writing my last review that I realised I hadn't posted anything on the other Double Fine game I played recently. If Costume Quest is the equivalent of a Rugrats episode, Stacking seems aimed at the Frasier enthusiast - it's all tasteful piano soundtracks and silent-movie inspired cutscenes. The gameplay seems to have come from Shaefer's point & click adventure history - you play a tiny Russian doll who can stack in a larger Russian doll and so forth. Each larger doll you stack into has an ability that might help you rescue members of your family. It's easy to imagine a speedrun of Stacking being very feasible- if you did the bare minimum you could get through the game in a couple of hours, but each problem has around four solutions, and it encourages you to replay each puzzle to find every solution. It may not surprise you that I probably did 100% of the first level, around 50% of the second and the bare minimum of what was required of me on the final level. Having said that, the end boss fight is inspired and I won't spoil it here. As slick as it is, Stacking is a game that would have benefitted from being a retail title, so it could have been a bigger, less repetitive title. But, it's hard to imagine the game getting the needed funding as a boxed title. It's an enjoyable, stylish curio, and generally worthy of the short amount of time it would ask of you. 6.5/10

Costume Quest

My wife has a tendency not to realise which games are for children and which are for adults. She'll often mistake Fez for a child's game and Call Of Duty as an adult game. Costume Quest is one of those rare games (although Tim Shaefer is good at being involved in them) that can appeal to all ages. CQ is an adorable turn-based RPG, centred around candy-fuelled monsters taking over Halloween - or according to the adults, older kids, and a missing sibling. It's also one of the few games that I actively seeked out to complete every achievement, and will probably play again this time next year. It's only around five hours, although everything is the game is perfectly judged and feels the right length...in fact this could be Double Fine's best game to date. 8.0/10

Infamous: Festival Of Blood

My only previous dealing with Infamous was getting it as a free game from the PSN hack.I liked it up until a difficulty spike and haven't returned back to it. However, I'd heard good things about Festival Of Blood and thought it was worth a go. It's pretty meh; a decent add-on pack, which can't really stand the weight of a stand-alone release. As I stated, I'm not too hot with the franchise or the genre, but this took me one four-hour sitting to finish. It's pretty repetitive, but it can be quite fun and Sony's Play Create Share ethos is evident in the user created levels. It's just that this feels like it should be a bonus on the disc - like if the Ada Wong level from Resident Evil 4 had been released as a full game. 5.5/10

Sleeping Dogs

I gamed periodically from the early eighties till the late nineties and then fell off the radar until about 2006. Gaming changed a lot in that period, and it can be best exemplified by GTA London being a new release when I went on my break, and San Andreas having come out around the time when I started again. As such, sandbox games seemed like something I'd missed seeing develop and I found it hard to get a foothold in the genre. I still haven't completed a GTA game. But I did finish Sleeping Dogs. For all it's technological advances,GTA seems quite an archaic game to me; badly chosen checkpoints and lengthy drives are really offputting to me. But somehow they're less painful in Sleeping Dogs, I'm not sure how they did it, as a lot of the things I didn't like in GTA are still present, just easier to cope with. The worst thing with Sleeping Dogs has to be it's writing. When you're best gangster friend tells you he's planning to go legit...well you should know what will happen soon if you've ever seen a crime film. The unexpectedly great thing about Sleeping Dogs, is the lovely neon splashes reflected on the wet Hong Kong streets. Whenever Epic shows off the latest generation of Unreal Engine they like to show details off like that, and Sleeping Dogs has those details in spades. On the whole, it's solid and enjoyable. Yes, it's totally unoriginal and GTA has done everything in this game before. But oddly, not always better. 8.0/10

Alan Wake: American Nightmare

The original Alan Wake was a very slick game, but flawed in many ways. In hindsight those flaws were more glaring due to the games prolonged development. As Alan Wake's American Nightmare didn't have the same expectations, it's initially more enjoyable, but the flaws still emerge.

So the first thing: there's probably never been a XBLA title with cutscenes of this calibre- very few games period actually. Second, when you start, the game feels really open- there's real opportunity to explore, which is great for a horror game. You feel you can get genuinely lost; it's really nail biting to have fought your way to a dead end & worrying you'll have the ammo to get back.

There are three levels, which you end up playing three times & this is probably the main criticism- it can feel a bit of a slog by the end. But on the whole, AW:AN succeeds in making the franchise feel vital and leaves you eager to see where it'll go next.

It's not a complete success but its a better building block for the future than the original title.

7.0/10

Max Payne 3

I really felt as if I hadn't played a real AAA game for a while, so I was looking forward to this. Unfortunately, I was very soon reminded of this tweet:

Max Payne 3: Like being forced to watch your friend's shitty film, with breaks to play their shitty game.

— Peter Serafinowicz (@serafinowicz) June 11, 2012

I really didn't enjoy this. Games like Halo are basically all shooting, and yet somehow you don't notice too much. Max Payne you do. And the whole "shoot someone else when you're dying to revive" thing is tempremental (a nice way of saying often cheap and buggy). And the writing is often terrible ("I'm not following" "YOU'RE NOT MEANT TO BE FOLLOWING!"). There are some great setpieces, but this feels like a monotonous slog and shows how badly Rockstar can misjudge something when they're out of their comfort zone. 5/10

Dead Or Alive 5

Dead Or Alive is famed for its boobs and rightly so! Soul Calibur probably has larger boobs in skimpier outfits, but Dead Or Alive has characters falling to the floor, with a glimpse of a large, but feasible cleavage and most importantly, with a realistic jiggle.

So yeah, I'm so desperate to write about something Dead Or Alive does exceptionally, I'm writing about tits. And let's be clear, it doesn't do anything bad- there's a meaty story mode, an arcade mode, plenty of multiplayer options...but it doesn't have that spark a Street Fighter, Tekken or even BlazBlue has. It's enjoyable, solid but lacking greatness.

6/10.

Silent Hill: Downpour

Silent Hill 2 is one of my favourite games ever and no matter how good the subsequent games have been, they've never really tapped into the psychological murk of that game. And Downpour isn't any different to be fair. In fact with development being handed over to a Czech team and Daniel Lucht (of Dexter fame) taking over composing duties from Akira Yamaoka, it's samey-ness is impressive and oddly commendable.

It really feels like the game that should have been released as Silent Hill 4 (just typing that gives me flashbacks to that revolving prison level) and there's nothing wrong in giving fans what they want. It's just that nothing truly impressive has been made by being conservative and Silent Hill could really use some radical changes to capture the imagination of a wider audience.

6.5/10

Catherine

Another game I didn't finish! I read a review of Catherine that said something like "I liked everything about this apart from the game" and it's a sentiment I understand.

The cutscenes are truly anime standard, the parts where you hang around the bar chatting are really well done, but the Q*Bert meets Portal parts of the main game just frustrated me.

You know those puzzles where you slide the tiles to make a picture? I could never do those and Catherine feels like it uses the same skills. It's more frustrating as I could imagine a different fun game fitted around the cutscenes.

Not really fair to give a mark, but it was a 6 for me, but I could easily see the people with the right skills adding at least another 2 to that score.

Dear Esther

Roger Ebert notoriously claimed that games (at least for the foreseeable future) could not be art. Many replied with numerous examples, which he shot down. One example was Flower, which it was claimed wasn't eligible for discussion as it didn't tie in with his definition of a game. Dear Esther is less of a game than Flower, and even more likely to be art.

One game I did play recently that has some similarities is Journey- both have a very different feel, but they are both pilgrimages, both focused on death and rebirth. And both beautiful, although Journey is appropriately light and sparse, where Dear Esther is dark and rich.

Roger Ebert would claim It doesn't feel like a game, but I can't imagine the story working in any format. And whilst this is more of a curio than a piece of entertainment, it's a provocative one that stretches the limits of the medium.

7.5/10

Deadly Premonition

Disclaimer! I didn't finish this game, as I got to the final boss battle with minimal ammo and little health. Most games now would give you multiple saves or a chance to replenish your supplies before this, but Deadly Premonition isn't most games.

Originally announced in 2004 as a PS2 game, Deadly Premonition seemingly fell down the back of the sofa, and came out in 2010. It ran on the Xbox but it was spiritually a PS2 game still.

From the graphics and controls, to the dated game mechanics, this really feels out of step. But in an odd way, this adds to the games strangeness. It also builds an affinity to PS2 era survival horrors such as Silent Hill 2 and Fatal Frame. In fact if Shenmue was a Twin Peaks homage, with the Black Lodge scenes replaced with Silent Hills otherworld, you'd be getting close to the feel of DP.

It also has a great cast, good voice acting, great (if frequently inappropriate) music and an inspired imaginary friend / 4th wall breaking device.

Deadly Premonition was a game I enjoyed despite (and sometimes because of) it's faults.
However that still means it is faulty in many ways. I'm not surprised at the claims the forthcoming directors cut is meant to address the 200 most common complaints.

I only think its fair to give the game a mark that indicates its not recommended to all, but could be appreciated by a select few:

7.0/10

Reckoning: Kingdoms Of Amalur

Have you seen Moneyball? It's a great film, based on a true story where the owner of a failing baseball team. He turns the teams fortunes around by investing in cheaper players that work well together, rather than throwing money at big names.

Curt Schilling, owner of the studio that made Reckoning, was better known as a baseball player and you can't help but feel the studio went bust from Schilling throwing money at big names. A respected fantasy author, a comic book legend on art and an Elder Scrolls level designer are all onboard and I expected this to be the Titanic of gaming- doomed by its excess and opulence.

However, Reckoning doesn't come across as that flash- it feels like an installment of Dragon Age that's finally got its shit together, with a Fable-esque art style to boot.

The main problem with the game was its release date: too close to The Witcher and Skyrim, which is a shame as although it's not as good as those two games, it's still a fine RPG. I spent around 50 hours on the game and could comfortably spend 50 more. Despite its studio no longer being around, I hope EA don't let this franchise go to waste.

8.5/10

Prototype 2

I'm sure I read something on Twitter recently where someone complained about writing generally in games. The point being that if a game plays well, a shoddy script can be overlooked, so there's little reason for them to improve*.

Which is pertinent to many games I've played recently, but especially to Prototype. Before playing the follow up, I tried to remember if I could recall anything about the original, and could only come up with a frustrating end boss battle that involved throwing explosives.

After playing the follow up, I remembered what the series was so good at: making you feel superhuman and giving you a great sandbox to at in. Running up skyscrapers, gliding off the Empire State Building, breaking disguise for the few seconds needed to kill a SWAT team- all amazing.

Prototype 2 also has a good line in sidemissions: I found myself completing every side quest, and frequently enjoyed this more than some of the same-old main missions.

Prototype is a fast food game: enjoyable at the time, but lacking satisfaction in the long run. Yet I can't help but look back on this fondly, and surprise myself by awarding it

8.0/10

Inversion

Remember that spate of sci-fi shooters a few years ago, where each had a novel twist, but that made them seem more alike and generic? I'm thinking Dark Sector, Timeshift, Fracture. Inversion could easily go on that list. Unfortunately, those games seemed a tad generic in 2008, so you can imagine how Inversion suffers. Inversion's twist is gravity can be affected, either with Half Life 2 gravity-gun style throwing objects, or Dead Space style propelling yourself from walls to ceiling. It's the latter that feels fresher and I can't but feel more of these sections could have given the game some much needed character. The worst fault though is it feels a slog. Checkpoints feel misplaced, Boss battles can be tough, and repeated relentlessly. I was glad to get a boss battle over with a character called the Slave Driver- little did I know, you have to fight this battle a further three times throughout the game. Inversion feels like its lacked playtesting; an outside opinion to point out what the game does good and what it's weak at. There could have been a lean six hour game with some epic set pieces, but it's become a 12 hour, flabby slog. Shame. 5.5/10

Soul Calibur 5

Recently I've been playing Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter X Tekken, both excellent fighters. Maybe if I hadn't, I wouldn't have found this so mediocre.

But it really seems it. Basic, leaden combat; pretty but generic graphics; an unmemorable story mode. There really feels as if there is a fighter renaissance taking place at the moment, SC5 isn't part of it & risks being left behind for good.

5.5/10

Spec Ops: The Line

In a weird way, verging on being a generic military shooter benefits Spec Ops. Because you think you know where it's going, it's all the more startling when it goes off the map.

The gameplay, graphics and to a lesser degree, the ending are serviceable but the things it does brilliantly are things that aren't done often in games- great story and treating the audience with genuine maturity.

This is a game that a score won't reflect how good it is; there's games that are technically better that you'll forget about. But you'll still be talking about this.

8.0/10

Assassin's Creed: Revelations

I just realised I missed this game off- It should be on here in between Arkham City and Bastion. Anyway, this is the first (and from the looks of things, the only) Assassin's Creed game not to feel like a step on from it's predecessor. There's a Tower Defence game, which I think I only played once, and some Portal style puzzle platforming sections, which contains probably the only grating VoiceOver work of Nolan North's career. Aside from this, it's more of the excellent gaming of Brotherhood. At the time I said a year off wouldn't hurt the franchise, but what I've seen of ACIII so far, it's looking like this was the sole slightly-off note. 7.5/10

Syndicate

I like to keep track of what I've played on here, but I'm not comfortable reviewing a game I haven't put the hours into. I didn't finish Bully (or to a lesser degree, Skyrim)but at least I put longer into those games than I did many of the games I completed. I probably put less than two hours into Syndicate before realising it wasn't for me. My main issue was probably it felt stuff was added because it seemed cool rather than because it added to the gameplay. The bloom lighting; the Deus Ex style augmentations that just let you blow people up rather than mixing up the gameplay, the frustrating boss fights...there's a pretty but generic shooter buried under a bunch of design choices that seem to have been thrown at it to see if anything stuck. Those more patient than myself might be rewarded if they stick with it, but I have no reservations about quitting on this for the stunning Strangers Wrath.

Street Fighter X Tekken

I enjoy fighting games, but of the mash-buttons-furiously school, which means the Tekken element of this game is far more appealing to me than Street Fighter. I seem to remember getting to maybe the third fight in SFIV & not being able to get any further.

SFXT seems much more user friendly and I had great fun with this game. It's all about the huge roster of characters, so my main criticism is that backdrops & character stories are thin on the ground, but the fighting more than makes up for it.

8.5/10

Sorcery

Sorcery is a title that was shown at E3 a few years back, disappeared off the radar and had a sudden, unexpected release, looking quite different and with a budget price tag. None of these signs bode well for the title.

I can't believe that I'm still talking about "waggle" in 2012, but I can't help but feel this would have been a more playable title with regular controls. But this might have shown it to be more generic too.

There's errors I wouldn't have expected from Sony's usually excellent Santa Monica studios- it starts repetitive, early bosses see an alarming difficulty spike and the controls feel sloppy.

It's frustrating to find you can upgrade your accuracy later in the game- trying to hit the right targets was the fault that was most likely to make me quit near the start.

Similarly, taking a health potion involves pressing square, shaking the controller till the potion is ready, and tipping it back to represent drinking the potion. You don't want to be doing all of that if you are being attacked and near death.

Once you've got used to its idiosyncrasies and you've powered up more, it can be quite enjoyable. It almost feels like it starts as a tech demo and only becomes a game part way through. I didn't find the game as short as some had suggested, although I probably only put around 6 hours into it and there's no multiplayer. It's hard to even recommend it at its budget price, although people who feel their Move has been neglected might find a weekend rental justifiable.

6.5/10

The Darkness II

The first Darkness game was released to OK reviews, but built up a word of mouth reputation after it's release for being emotionally involving. It was, but as the reviews pointed out, it was only really an OK game. In a way, the follow up fails to pick up on the strengths of the first game, and focuses firmly on the stuff that was kind-of cool (like the tentacle killings) rather than making something even more involving.

It's solid enough, with some better than average writing, but it could have been more.

Graphically the follow-up seems more inspired by Borderlands than the original game, and this debt can also be seen in Vendettas, a substantial bonus game included. Like Borderlands, you can pick one of four classes, you kill lots of stuff and you get the feeling it would be more fun playing co-op (which you can, I just tnd not to).

It's hard to really fault The Darkness II, it's just there was potential for it to be a truly memorable game, where all to often it can feel alarmingly derivative despite it's unique control twists.

7/10.

The Witcher 2: Assassin Of Kings

I won a ridiculous amount of Witcher 2 goodies, which I received in a steady flow. The Xbox version of the game was in the last parcel to arrive, and generally it lived up to the high expectations I'd built up.

If I had two criticisms - the graphics are very good, but from the reviews I'd expected them to be state of the art. They aren't, but do the job, especially if the game is installed to the hard drive.

Secondly the map is really dire. I can't help but feel a compass would be better during the game and pausing the game should give the same detailed map there is at the moment for a more general location.

But this is nitpicking really; it's a compelling game with good replay value (it genuinely needs to be played twice), a great story and interesting characters. It feels a little more linear than say Skyrim, but that's probably a price to pay for the fantastic storyline.

A great PC franchise makes a surprisingly successful journey to consoles. Lets hope for more.

9/10.

Fez

Eurogamer have just done an article on people's Fez notebooks. If you're not using a walkthrough, and you're aiming to get 64 cubes, you will have a notebook. Fez inspires notebooks.

Fez would be charming as just a strightahead 2D platformer. The ability to flip the pespective makes it ingenious. The puzzles, oh god, the puzzles...they're spectacular. They're not just outside the box, they're frequently unaware of the boxes existence.

And there's so much of it. I'm on my second playthrough right now and there's whole worlds I've yet to discover and I'm so excited about the prospect of finding them.

Fez plays like the reviews of Braid read - it's as fun as Super Mario and makes you feel as smart as Portal. Absolutely essential.

10/10.

Journey

I've not long finished Journey, about two hours after I started it. This might not seem long for a game, but it's perfect for Journey - long enough to feel like it's not a chore to replay it to find more of it's secrets. Long enough to play the whole thing with a second player.

On this first play-through, I didn't encounter much of the multiplayer, although I did get a couple of helpful players trying to alert me if I was wandering off in the wrong direction. There's little in the way of real gameplay - just the bare bones - but there's a beauty and emotional depth to the game that meant I wasn't overly bothered.

I do really want to play Journey again; but I can't see it having the same impact as first time round, although the trophy list suggests I could be wrong. Small, but perfectly formed, Journey completes a hat-trick of wonderful games from thatgamecompany and has left me eager for the soon to be announced next project from Jenova Chen.

9.0/10

Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 2 was one of the best received games of this generation. People were eagerly anticipating a follow up, to see how it could be further refined and how this story would end. But what was looking to be one of this years obvious crowdpleasers turned out to be a controversial title, with no shortage of ill will aimed at it.

Mostly this was due to the ending. I had no issues with it, but a theory on Kotaku suggests this could be that I'm not as invested in the lore as other players can be. Whilst I was fine with the ending, there was other things I wasn't keen on with ME3 - it seemed buggy. At first I kept having random textures appear over faces in conversations; other times the faces wouldn't appear at all - it would just cut to a wall where a character was obviously meant to be standing by.

ME2's structure felt formulaic (recruit member, do loyalty mission, repeat till you're ready to take on final mission), but taking that away in ME3 felt like I was following a paper trail, with little build up to the final part of the game.

Some things can be so bad, they make you reassess their predecessors and whilst Mass Effect 3, is by no means a bad game, I've come away from the franchise thinking it's not that strong. ME1 was promising, ME2 is starting to feel like a fluke of brilliance and ME3 feels like an often buggy mop-up sessions to tie up some loose ends and kill off some allies you might have worked hard to save previously. Hmm, what do you know? Maybe I was more emotionally invested in this franchise than I thought.

8.0/10

Bully: Scholarship Edition

Disclaimer! I didn't finish Bully, or come to that, any Rockstar game until Red Dead Redemption. Playing Bully reminded me why; no checkpoints, quests available at certain times, curfews...failure in Bully can mean replaying a big chunk of game just to get the chance to restart the mission. And of course, it's a four year old port of a six year old game. And the voice acting seemed a bit cheesy when I started...

And yet, I enjoyed Bully. When I spent hours trying to describe what I enjoyed about it to a friend, he replied with the far more succinct "Yeah. It's fun". And that fun can go a long way to overlooking it's shortcomings. A bit of a curio rather than an essential purchase, but if the long mooted sequel materialises I'll be very interested.

6.5/10

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I got married recently, so when I had my stag do, it was inevitable talk would turn to Skyrim. Put a bunch of guys together for long enough and talk will turn to Skyrim. What was notable was how different our experiences were; as I rent games, I blasted through the campaign in around 18-20 hours reaching level 14. Another friend was at level 40, with having spent about 100 hours in the game and minimal headway into the quest.

Grand Theft Auto is usually cited as the prime example of a sandbox game; a game where you're free to shun the trappings of a main mission and truly explore a new world, but it feels like Elder Scrolls is the franchise to truly deliver this experience. Although I was the only person to finish the main story line, I was the person at my stag do who had probably done the least to complete the game- completing Skyrim isn't about getting 50 achievement points for killing the games biggest enemy, it's about discovering a quest you can genuinely feel like  you're the only person to have found.

I'm going to buy this, so inbetween rentals I'll have a game I can be happy to keep coming back to and keep finding it fresh.

9.5/10

Dead Island

That trailer was what sold Dead Island, and what caused an issue for most people. It suggested a game with real emotional depth and delivered a game where you hit zombies over the head with a blunt object for thirty hours. Or, until the blunt object broke, which generally takes about thirty seconds.

Dead Island is easily the hardest game for me to review as it started off around a 6 for me, worked its way up to an 8, and fluctuated between the two for much of the game. I didn't really encounter any bugs in the game, but I did find it repetitive - pretty much every mission in the game is a fetch quest- and rather than providing you with any real challenges, it just spams you with hoardes of enemies. The RPG levelling didn't feel as satisfying as the mighty Borderlands, but I can't deny it is pretty addictive, and often entertaining. Whilst the speed with which your weapons detioriate can be frustrating, the melee combat is visceral and satisfying.

This could be the start of an interesting franchise - there's obvious potential here, but it's never fully realised.



7.0/10

The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn

The most dreaded of games; the movie tie-in. Tintin excapes a lot of the issues by being based on a 50 year old story by a team who worked on Beyond Good & Evil and possibly were more familiar with the source material being European.
It's still not a great game - it's very basic, even to the extent of the end bosses playing the same, but enjoyable enough.

Things get decidely stranger in the bonus sections multiplayer (although they can be played fine solo) section. Not having to be tied down to the movies plot does it the world of good (it's based on Capt Haddock's Thompson and Thomson caused concussion). There seems to be far more replay value in this section and it feels tighter and more enjoyable than the campaign. Worth checking out if you see it cheap enough.

6.0/10

Bastion

Programmers like Cliffy B have announced that the mid-tier in gaming is dead. People are interested in blockbuster titles, and there's a market for Xbox Live titles. But those smaller titles are getting increasingly accomplished & ambitious, and filling the place of that mid-tier: titles such as Braid, Super Meat Boy and Limbo have featured heavily in end of year polls.

Bastion is the latest high profile indie title; it's unique selling point is a narator who describes all that's happening in the game - even to the extent of when you fall off the edge of the playing area and when you break random things. It's art style is lovely, quite similar to Braid, and the soundtrack is as good as it's narration.



If there's one drawback, it's that it's a pretty basic RPG based hack & slash - it almost reminded me of Gauntlet at times. Great fun, beautifully executed but repetitive in long doses.

7.5/10

Batman: Arkham City

Arkham Asylum was amazing wasn't it? It maxed out the capabilities of consoles and judged everything perfectly. It was so perfectly balanced that to try and improve one area would only diminish another area.
And I guess this is where Arkham City comes in.

First of all, it's an amazing game. But it's essentially the same amazing game from 2009, but two years on. And lacking that suprise at how good that first game turned out to be. And that brilliant Scarecrow sequence.
Certain aspects have been, if not improved, certainly enlarged. But to compensate, other areas feel diminished - the map is bigger but the interiors (where much of the story still takes place) seem smaller. The campaign feels shorter this time round, but it would be about the same length with the added sidequests. There's twice as many Riddler quests, but it feels a bit like overkill as there was a good amount first time.

There are some stunning points in this game - the Mr Freeze battle is rightly recognized as one of the best boss fights ever; the Rā's al Ghūl sequences are imaginitive. But in 2009 I felt wonder, and in 2012 I'm feeling competence.

8.5/10

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

(originally posted 2 March, 2012)

Uncharted 2 was an amazing piece of entertainment, the closest thing on a console to a Hollywood blockbuster. It seemed a dead-cert that the follow up would be an improvement, but somehow it's a lesser game. Very good, but still lesser.
It opens with a pub brawl, but it doesn't feel like a fluid combat system - more like a Dragon's Lair style good or bad cutscene depending on when you hit the button. Starting the game underwhelmed, I seemed to be overly aware of any flaws - the generic gameplay, the alarmingly loose controls.

Around the halfway mark, a lot of my concerns took a back seat as the game wheeled out some of the most epic setpieces I'd ever encountered. It's just a shame that it takes hours to get to the amazing stuff and then fizzles out again near the end.

8.0/10

The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword

(originally published March 2 2012)

So the first game I finished this year was Skyward Sword. It's a Zelda game - when are they anything other than great? To be fair I've read some very good criticisms of the game, but there are very few companies that can do level design as good as Nintendo and Skyward Sword is a pitch-perfect showcase for their strengths. A great start for my year in gaming.

 9.5/10

Game Diary

At the start of 2012 I decided to start a Posterous blog, keeping track of all the games that I subsequently complete. I slacked off a bit recently due to Posterous getting bought by Twitter, and me getting married, but I'll get back on track here.

I'll try to import my earlier posts and get this blog up to speed.