It’s my birthday today. I turned the ripe ol’ age of 36, and been spoilt rotten. Money, prezzies and general fuss … makes me feel quite humble. Of the gifts I had, I got RAGE on XBOX 360, John Landis’ Monsters In The Movies book, The Lion King on Blu-ray, as well as other things. All of which you will hear a lot more of on this blog in the coming days … pictures and everything!
So I have had a great day and would like to thank everyone who did their part to make it so special.
Whilst I enjoyed Crysis 2, I felt that it was a little rough around the edges and didn’t quite deliver the fully immersive experience I was hoping for. Crysis #1 however, the famed graphics-intensive PC hit that crippled even the most powerful of gaming PCs has arrived as a download-only release, for about £15, and promises to show us console owners what we’ve been missing for the last four years since the game was first released.
Now a four year old game you might think would feel dated, but I can confidently say this has all the polish and visual excellence of a full priced game, and with a near 20 hour single player campaign and a huge tropical island to explore, value for money can never be questioned. Crysis has you playing as Nomad, a highly trained super-soldier sent into investigate a mystery discovery on a remote island. Problem is the Korean Army have already arrived there, and before you can find out what has happened, you must take on their forces. This game plays like a mix between Battlefield and Far Cry 2 with a stunningly realistic world, intelligent enemy A.I. and a wealth of weapons and vehicles to use to ‘blow shit up’. The fun here is the freedom you have to approach objectives however you see fit, and how you can detour from your path and just go exploring. Using the famed Nano-Suit to switch to cloaked camouflage or maximum armour or the ability to run at high-speed is as much fun as it was in Crysis 2 even though the suit is in it’s profile 1.0 version rather than Crysis 2′s version 2.0 meaning some modes are not available.
For a game heralded as ‘not possible on consoles’ and being one of the most acclaimed games on a graphical point of view, this XBOX 360 version runs very smoothly and looks fantastic. I can safely say that its one of the best looking open world jungle / island set games I have ever played, and although some interior scenery is a little cut & paste and lacking in detail, the wealth of effects, excellent lighting and distructable scenery means that even on consoles, Crysis is a beauty.
Crysis originally came with a multiplayer mode, but that isn’t available here. Crytek focused on porting over the single player, and have done a fine job, but for taking out one mission where you get to fly a jet, which apparently wasn’t that good anyway. Otherwise it’s all here – and it’s brilliant.
Download this now.
I have somewhat mixed feelings regarding the Gears franchise. Arguably one of the flagship game series on the XBOX 360, this guns and brawn third person sci-fi shooter is perhaps at times a little too macho and gory for my taste. Yet I played and completed Gears 1 & 2 and still managed to get a lot out of them. Their gameplay mechanics especially the combat, is superbly realised, but at times the series has let itself down badly with unnecessary (and badly implemented) vehicle sections, and a steep learning curve. Gears is bad-ass hard at times. It’s also probably the loudest, noisiest game currently available, something that again can make playing it an uphill struggle. I’ve rarely been able to play a Gears game for more than half an hour at a time.
Gears Of War 3 however comes to us with little of the fanfare of the previous two, and from what I have played so far, feels much better realised, from a story and gameplay point of view, than the two previous games put together. It seems clear to me that developer Epic games has honed their craft and delivered what could be a gaming masterpiece, at least on this generation of consoles … with action, character and a cleverly written narrative coming together to pull me into the franchise like never before. It also has to be said, that along with games like Crysis 2 and the forthcoming Rage, this is visually of the top tire of XBOX 360 games, with stunningly detailed environments, excellent character models and a wealth of effects, showing that when it comes to Unreal Engine 3, creators Epic Games sure know how to pull out all the stops.
In addition to the lengthy campaign (touted as the longest in the series) there is a plethora of multiplayer modes. Now multiplayer Gears has usually left me cold, mainly down to its round-based gameplay with no respawning. This means if you die, you have to sit the round out until either team dies or wins. This means for a novice such as myself, it’s very hard to get good at the game, with many long pauses between play. Epic have listened to us tried and tested deathmatch fanboys however, and this time given us a traditional, respawning team deathmatch mode, and when you put this alongside other modes such as capture the flag, as well as the acclaimed Hord mode – this is a game that even once the single player is beaten, should last you for months. I must also add the single player offers four player co-op, and all the multiplayer modes can be played on your own against bots. In other words, this has it all.
An essential purchase.
I have played each game in the Deus Ex series, and this much-anticipated third instalment has been a long time coming. Sort of Half-Life meets Metal Gear Solid, with a sprinkling of Blade Runner on the top. You play as Adam Jenson, a cybernetically enhanced security agent working for Sarrif Industries who must investigate what happened during an attack on his previous employer that ended with the death of a close friend. Set in a future detroit, you have the freedom to go about missions and side quests in you own way, upgrading your abilities along the way to further enhance and customize your experience. This is a very deep and expansive game, with tons to see and do, and will no doubt last be a fair while. Interacting with the environment and the characters is a joy as the world you inhabit seems very alive, aided greatly by an impressive graphics engine with life-like animation and some stunning lighting and other effects.
The story too is quite complex and obviously had some care put into it. Although you have an arsenal of weaponry at hand though, this is no run and gun shooter either, with the gameplay leaning much more towards stealth and finding hidden areas and different routes through an area. This is also much of the fun, as discovering different way to approach a given situation can be really absorbing and often I have found the time fly by as I get lost in such a detailed and interesting world. Having played the previous games, although extremely polished, it still feels very similar and the actual mechanics haven’t really progressed from Deus Ex #1. Which considering that game is regarded as a masterpiece, I suppose is no real criticism.
So a solid experience then, and although only a little way into it (just reached China) I’m really enjoying it.
A Choir doing the theme song from Valve’s seminal first person puzzler Portal. Respect.
