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.