Review: Resident Evil Revelations

            The Resident Evil series has been going for quite a while now and shows no signs of slowing, indeed there are going to be a total of 3 new additions this year in ‘Resident Evil 6’, ‘Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City’ and the recently released 3DS title ‘Resident Evil Revelations’. Now as I said in my previous blog I am a big fan of the older title in the series and that they are not what they used to be. Does ‘Revelations’ restore faith in the franchise? Does it work on 3DS? Is it any good? Well let’s see shall we?

            ‘Revelations’ is set in between the events of Resident Evils 4 and 5, in it you primarily take the role of series staple Jill Valentine however control does switch to other recurring character Chris Redfield as well as a few others. Ditching the far more open areas seen in ‘Resident Evil 5’ almost entirely the action this time takes place on board a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea. This ship, The Queen Zenobia, has been hijacked by a terrorist organisation called Veltro and infected with T Abyss, essentially an aquatic version of the T Virus. Jill and new partner Parker arrive on board to search for Chris and his partner Jessica who have been investigating Veltro’s activities. Of course everything starts to go wrong and the story begins to twist and turn from here on.

            The use of a cruise ship as a setting was a great choice and, perhaps ironically given the subject matter, a breath of fresh air. The ship allows for an old fashioned feel as it’s all very confined which is exactly what I want in a survival horror game. Narrow corridors, junctions that could contain enemies, creepy sounds and flicking lights. It’s all here and the general eeriness it creates helps build a tension I haven’t had in a Resident Evil game since ‘Nemesis’ way back on PS1. The good old key fetching is back too; found a door with an anchor mark on it? Guess what key opens that one? Granted it’s not rocket science but having an explorable environment with areas to revisit again takes us back from 5’s linearity and firm mission style levels. The game is set out in an episodic format which is not ideal as it breaks up the action fairly frequently, of course this was to facilitate short play sessions being on a handheld so can be forgiven somewhat. Auto-saves also have to be given some leeway for the same reason, of course I’d prefer to have to find a typewriter and decide whether it was worth some of my finite ink supply to save the game but the bus journey isn’t that forgiving to this style of play.

            The 3DS does show off what it can do here, graphically ‘Revelations’ is fantastic although it does suffer quite badly from the splitting that occurs with the 3D mode if you don’t look it straight on. Given that most of my handheld gaming is done on buses I played the majority of the game with the 3D effect off because of this but it doesn’t detract from the experience. What does hamper the public transport player is a difficulty to see what is going on when the light levels outside are high or changing. The game plays best in a darkened environment ad the game itself is dark, this coupled with a sunny afternoon commute lead to quite a few monsters having Jill’s face for lunch. The game makes an effort to use the touch pad, your inventory is primarily controlled by it and there are a few doors to unlock by doing puzzles on the touch screen but they do seem slightly forced, as if they threw them in just for the sake of using the touch stuff. What was cool (although no less shoe horned in) was a finger print scanner for a few doors late game that as far as I could tell actually responds to your finger print only. I tried getting a friend to use it after it registered my print and it didn’t work so either he did it wrong or it genuinely does register your print.

In terms of non touch controls ‘Revelations’ does pretty well. The camera is a bit wonky sometimes but apparently this is improved by the Circle Pad Pro, an accessory that adds a second thumb stick, but I couldn’t justify the asking price to move the camera for one game so persevered, trust me it’s in no way a hindrance to go without it. Aiming a weapon puts you in a first person firing mode which helps alleviate the targeting issues of the old games, what I did find out to my horror is that you can strafe while aiming by holding L, moving and aiming in Resident Evil should be mutually exclusive. I will not be swayed on this. The only truly annoying control related issues were the dodging system which is rubbish and the swimming sections. The swimming might just be a personal issue though since you push up to swim up and down to go down and no matter what I constantly tried to work it as if the y axis were inverted.

The enemies on offer are perhaps the biggest disappointment in the game. I get that they were going for bloated, decayed sea monster type things but on the whole all the basic enemies are incredibly similar and bland, the bosses are a little better sometimes but nothing stands out as particularly impressive (except returning favourites the Hunters). This is a shame because the Zenobia itself has a surprising amount of character, a good mix of maintenance type areas, an impressive great hall complete with operatic soundtrack and lots in between. It would have been great if the same levels of design could be seen in the enemies that roam her halls.

Aside from the 8 hour or so campaign, bolstered by missions (read: achievements) there is also Raid Mode which allows you and a co-op buddy should you wish it to take on sections from the game with bigger, badder and more numerous enemies. Completing these gives you points to spend on weapons which let you complete harder Raid levels and so on. There are missions for this mode too and all the missions come with a reward associated with the mode they were acquired in. There is also a totally not a gimmick street pass mission exchange that allows you to get missions by being near other people who have the game.

Overall I was impressed with ‘Resident Evil Revelations’. Sure it has it’s drawbacks but it is a damn fine game and by far the best 3DS original title to date. The return to enclosed spaces is welcome and makes it feel more like Resident Evil of old. Graphically impressive and with ultimately tight gameplay this is definitely worth picking up if you are a fan of the series or simply looking for a great addition to your 3DS collection. A heartening step in the right direction for the Resident Evil franchise, ditching the supporting partner is the next step that needs to happen to get the it back to where it should be. Being alone makes all the difference in creating a scary atmosphere and that is exactly what a survival horror game should be aiming at. As it stands though ‘Resident Evil Revelations’ is the best outing for the series in some time, ‘Operation Racoon City’ and ‘Resident Evil 6’ have a hard act to follow when their releases roll around later this year.

82%

My Thoughts on Resident Evil 6

            You’ve probably seen the launch trailer for Resident Evil 6 by now and if you are of the same mindset of just about everybody I know then you are drooling and giddy with anticipation. This is where I step in and attempt to dispel all that joy and happiness; I’m nice like that you know.

            It starts nicely enough by reintroducing Leon Kennedy and showcasing some pretty classic Resident evil scenes. We get enclosed corridors, T Virus zombies and some good looking city street sections. This is the sort of thing I’ve wanted from a Resident Evil game for some time, back to the roots of 1, 2 and 3 which I love so much. I can even forgive the later sections which show Leon in action in a more fast paced frantic style, partly because I could perceive these being more limited and also because sliding under an attacking zombie, spinning around and scoring a headshot on another one is damn cool. Unfortunately this is where any and all praise I have ends.

            You see Leon is but one of three playable characters in this outing, the other two being Chris Redfield and an unknown mercenary type, these two appear to have their own play styles and here problems start jumping up all over the place. First up we have the new guy who from snippets of dialogue I have theorised is somehow naturally immune to the virus, he states ‘Not me, just my blood. Well the world can have it if someone ponies up the dough’ in response to his blonde companion (possibly Ashley from Resi 4?) saying ‘The world needs you’. This guys sections seem to be chase sequences where you flee a hulking nemesis type creature with a mechanical claw like arm. There looks to be a lot of corridor style ‘make it before he catches you’ bits interspersed with a melee focused action combat system and punctuated with what could be QTE battles with the tyrant. If this was to occur only a few times in the game I could maybe be content but I imagine it will be split almost equally three ways and a third of the game with this as a base is not on for a Resident Evil title.

            Now the major disappointment, Chris’s part. When I saw what was going on here I couldn’t help but say out loud ‘What the fuck…’ here we have Gears of Resident Evil. Chris looks like he’s going to play like a god awful steroid pumped behemoth power sprinting to cover and opening fore with automatic weapons. If that weren’t bad enough his enemies look very like the Las Plagas infected of the last outing, as well as non-infected gun toting gang members. There is so much I loathe about the inclusion of this sort of gameplay in a Resident Evil title that it’s hard to put it into a coherent structure not punctuated by profanity but I shall have a go. Why include Las Plagas AND the T Virus when it’s the later that we all want to see back? Las Plagas was rubbish in 5, if that is what it is in 6 it’s going to be rubbish again. More to the point why have non-infected people shooting at you? There is simply no need and the only thing I can think of for its inclusion is to try and lure in people from GoW and its countless clones. Don’t misunderstand me here I have no problem with cover based shooting, as you may know the Mass Effect series is one of my all time favourites. My issue is that they’ve put it into what I was hoping would be a survival horror game like its predecessors. These mechanics have no place in a Resident Evil game, not even a little tiny remotely justifiable place.

            So that’s that over with. I can only hope that the 3DS ‘Resident Evil Revelations’ which I have recently started and will review shortly puts some faith back into a steadily declining franchise. A friend of mine made a point the other day that I shall end on. There’s nothing wrong with them making the huge budget titles such as this one to bring in the big bucks, but why not release shorter, perhaps serial ‘proper’ Resident Evil games on XBLA or PSN? Given the taint that has been put on the series already I could totally go along with this. Several hundred points for a spot of true survival horror that we very rarely get these days sounds good to me. Hell they wouldn’t necessarily have to be short, ‘I Am Alive’ looks to be a stunning game and that’s going to be download only. So how about it Capcom, give us purist fans what we want, please?

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Review

         

            To say that ‘Star Wars: The Old Republic’ (henceforth referred to as SWTOR) has consumed the increased amount of free time I’ve found at my disposal lately would be somewhat of an understatement. This has not come as a shock given my adoration of Star Wars itself and of Bioware who have once again created something sublime. In case you are unaware SWTOR is a new MMO set in the Star Wars universe and I have been looking forward to it for some time now. At one stage I tried to convince myself I could go without it, that I wouldn’t bother. This lasted well-ish until about 11am on the day I could pick up my pre-ordered (I was going to cancel it, honest…) copy of the incredible Collectors Edition. When it comes to collectors items like Sith lord statues or other such ornaments of awesome proportions I am worse than any magpie, in am inexorably drawn to them as they are to shiny things. The box alone for this edition was one of the shiniest things I’ve ever seen. Luckily people I know knew me better than I did and I have ended up not only with the game but several other incredibly cool extras and am sitting pretty in a nest full of glittering SWTOR related stuff. Having tortured the magpie analogy enough at this point I’ll get on to a review… of sorts.

            Until I sat down to write this I’d never tried to review an MMO before and as it turns out they are somewhat tricky to encapsulate, the reasons for this will become clear as I proceed. The one thing I wanted to test more than any other was Bioware’s claim that a major focus was in the writing and that the single player experience would be as exceptional as the multiplayer. Under normal circumstances I would never even dream to question Bioware’s ability to write, they have proved time and again that they have some of the very best writers in the industry but this was a strange prospect to me. A single player focus in an MMO, something almost tautologically muliplayer? In an effort to see the validity of their claims I decided to solo the game all the way to the level cap (50 at present). At time of writing I have just hit 46 after a month of solo play and I am ashamed of any doubts I had before beginning. The class specific quests serve as your main story line and are incredibly tight, well paced and thought out. I can only comment on the Jedi Consular story to any degree as my other characters are not far enough into the game (3 or 4 alts in the 15-20 level range) but all early indications point towards the same, the Trooper in particular looks very promising indeed. They have even managed to incorporate the standard Bioware choice conversation wheels with Light Side and Dark Side conversation options scattered in amongst the normal ones, very much the same as ‘Mass Effect’s Renegade and Paragon options.

            Perhaps the power of the writing is best illustrated in my responses to these conversations options. Normally in games I lean towards the Dark Side/Renegade options. Not because I want to be a badass but because they are either more fun or more usually that if I were to put myself in the same situation I don’t think the goody goody option would be how I would react. The galaxy is out to get you and being incredibly nice to everyone seems like it wouldn’t achieve all that much. As my Consular I have been compelled to take the Light Side option almost every single time. I realised after some time that the game was very subtly forcing me into a role play scenario. I was doing the actions I thought would be right for my character and not myself which threw out two conclusions. Firstly that unlike ‘Mass Effect’ (to keep the same comparison) I was not projecting myself onto my character, and secondly that I think that was exactly the desired effect. As an MMO people will very rarely limit themselves to one character so if the story worked in a way to put you as that character you could theoretically end up playing 8 characters (assuming you limit yourself to one server) all the way to 50 in exactly the same way, making the same decisions because that’s what you would do. What they have done instead is write the stories or characters in such a way that those same 8 characters can be taken all the way to level cap in 8 different ways without you having to resort to unnatural decisions making. This is a triumph beyond what I was expecting and I doff my cap to the writers who worked on this, they deserve serious credit.

            The gameplay is fairly standard MMO affair and if you’re used to the genre you will pick it up instantly. If not however it is still easy to grasp. Using a combination of WASD and the mouse you navigate the environments pursuing your main quest and picking up side quests along the way should you wish. You do this until the game requires you to travel to a new planet where you discover new characters, quests and repeat the process. Each planet also has a ‘main’ subquest which is in many cases as good as the main quest proper to help you keep going and distract you from the repetitive nature of the tasks. Written down this sounds tedious in the extreme but the story pulls you through along with the inexplicable desire to make your level and stats go up to get to the next piece of equipment. For example I recently acquired an orange lightsaber crystal that I can’t use until I level up a bit. I can’t really explain why but I want a bitchin’ orange double bladed lightsaber. On second thought that doesn’t really need explanation since ‘because it’s awesome’ seems to suffice but you get my point. Right back to mechanics, you get a standard MMO skills tray which allows you to put 12 skills along the 1 - = button on your keyboard and you simply use them to defeat the enemies you find as you complete quests. Both of these grant experience points towards the next level along with exploring new areas but quest rewards are by far the most noticeable gains.

            What sets this somewhat apart from other MMOs in terms of gameplay is the companion system. As you progress through the game you meet certain characters who end up staying with you aboard your ship and one of whom you can bring with you to aid in combat. This is a huge help to the solo player and most of the companions offer different boons to their use, you simply find the one which compliments your play style the best and stick with them. Where the companions really come in though is in the crew skills you can take. As with most MMOs there is a crafting system which allows you to make items of a certain type. You can have up to three skills but only one of them can be a crafting skill and the others must be gathering skills. As well as the standard way of gathering materials (finding them in the world) you can send your companions on missions to find them for you. These missions vary in length of time from 3 minutes at low level to over an hour for higher levels and whilst away the deployed companion is otherwise unavailable. The benefits of this are that you find rarer, better and exclusive items which cannot be found exploring or looting as well as making use out of your other companions which would otherwise be doing nothing. Once you have the materials you can make items that you have learned the schematics for, these are either bought from the crating trainer, found in lockboxes or from certain missions themselves. Being able to make your own gear is useful as well as fun, and if you join a guild as I have you have a group of people with lots of different crafting skills so you can make and trade items with each other rather than paying large amounts for gear in shops or from the auction house.

            SWTOR also has ship based combat as a sort of mini game. Once you get your ship you can accept missions which take you into an on rails shooter portion of the game. These missions last about 5 minutes and more and more unlock as progress through the levels, they also reset daily so you can do each of them once every 24 hours. They are highly profitable, particularly the first time you complete them, and contrary to popular opinion are incredibly entertaining. I wasn’t sure what to expect the first time I loaded up one of these missions but when I realised what was going on I couldn’t help but smile. Everyday you get the chance to take a break from standard mob bashing and play something that makes me think of ‘Star Fox’ which is high praise indeed.

            I could go on and on about this game but wary of the length I’m going to reign it in here. There are admittedly lots of points I haven’t covered but this is what made the game so hard to review. I have played most days for a month and have not quite hit the level cap on 1 character, there are 7 others to explore. 7 more stories and 3 or 4 more play styles I’ve barely scratched. Although the Jedi and Sith are pretty parallel the others are somewhat mixed up giving slight nuances to get used to. I haven’t done any Flashpoints as these are group missions and I wanted to focus on the single player play. I have experimented very little with PvP because by the time I started there were quite a few level 50s out there with PvP specific gear meaning I died. A lot. All that said though I have experienced enough of the universe they have created to offer informed opinions. SWTOR is a solid game, fantastically well written, beautiful environments, well disguised quest objectives that distract from ‘go here and kill x of creature y’ and I look to my future explorations of this galaxy with anticipation. Of course there is work to do on it, MMOs are never perfect at launch and there have been a few issues but Bioware seem very much on top of it with regular patches to aid the situation. A big one is going on right now actually, how else do you think I found the time to write out some 1800 words on it!

90%

Rage Quitting... not so bad after all

            I very rarely get angry in everyday life. Well to be more exact I very rarely do anything about getting angry in everyday life. I have always been very conscious of hurting other people (physically or otherwise) so when I do get angry I keep it to myself, don’t act on it and otherwise just get on with stuff. I discovered some time ago that this is certainly not true of my temper in or at video games; indeed it appears that quite the reverse is the case!

            The very first instance I can remember of game related rage was a result of ‘Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga’.  The game itself is fantastic; along with much of the rest of the titles bearing ‘Shin Megami Tensei’ but there was a breaking point I reached in this particular one. I’d been grinding for a while and was on the way back to save my progress as you do. In sight of the save point I encounter a random battle which goes less than well. It turns out that there is an enemy in this particular area that when it back attacks you and uses a certain combination of moves then you are helpless to watch as your characters slowly lose all their health due to being stunned over and over again. I didn’t get to make one attack; I lost a lot of experience because of the game over and at this point hurled the PS2 controller with all my strength at the nearest wall. This was a costly action of course as I had to then buy a new controller but I was totally overtaken by rage.

            In recent memory nothing has incensed me more than StarCraft 2 multiplayer matches that I’ve lost. Fair enough if I deserved to lose, but if I should have won (or feel I should have won) then all hell breaks loose. Fist slams on desk, strings of intelligible swearing pour from my lips as I attempt to find some combination that rightly sums up my opinions of either my opponent or myself. I remember when I first started playing and thought to myself ‘I’ll always be mannered and never leave a game without saying GG first’ oh how naïve of me that was. I never went so far as to openly abuse the other player but I had definitely rage quit a good number of games before I stopped playing about a year ago (partly due to a string of such incidents but primarily because I had stuff to deal with I wasn’t doing).

            Up to this point I agree that this all seems pretty negative and in support of the media’s ‘video games make people violent’ bullshit but hear me out. For those of you out there similarly adverse to conflict as myself these interactions can offer a great way of releasing everything held in from the everyday frustrations you otherwise bottle up and put away. Yes there are occasionally some consequences, such as a new controller perhaps, but they are only ever to you. This is hugely appealing to me since it gives me a medium to have violent outbursts that don’t hurt anybody and free me up of pent up stress and anger or whatever else.

            That games can cause such reactions in me just helps to cement in my mind just how powerful a force they can be. It’s not just anger of course that they tap into. I have never cried and almost never been even remotely sad at a TV show or movie, Aerith’s death in Final Fantasy VII will cause sadness every time I see it. The point I’m rambling somewhat towards is that games can generate emotional responses beyond what a lot of people expect. So yes games can make you angry but that is no reason to damn them or regard them as dangerous or damaging. In fact what they should be is praised for along with anger they can also produce happiness, sadness and any other emotions you care to mention as well if not better than any other entertainment form. Everyone needs an escape or a release occasionally and I can think of no better way of acquiring either.

Review: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

            Bleary eyed, blinded by the light of the natural world I stumble from the confines of my indoor cell. I of course am talking about my self incarceration at the hands of ‘The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’. I will start by apologising that this has taken quite so long for me to write, you see I wanted to finish at least the main quest before writing a review and I got a little bit distracted. Well I say a little bit, I started the main quest line proper after about 80 hours of side quests, exploration and general dithering. So anyway, on with the show!

As anyone familiar with an ‘Elder Scrolls’ title will already know you begin the game as a nameless prisoner, you are treated to a bit of back-story as the cart transports you and a few others similarly on death row to the town square where you are scheduled to be decapitated. You step down from the cart and are then unleashed upon the character creation screen, you may be here for some time. Obviously the main thing you need to pick is your race, each has unique racial traits and abilities and slight variations in starting stats but go for what you like the look of best, part of the beauty of ‘Skyrim’ is that regardless of race you can be effective as whatever class you like, the only thing you have to compensate for is perhaps a slightly lower starting skill level which is overcome quickly enough at low levels. I looked at the various races and toyed with the idea of being an Argonian thief or a Redguard warrior, but then gave up all pretence that I was going to be anything but a Dunmer (Dark Elf) mage and rolled one of those. This is all I’m going to say about the story so as to avoid spoilers for any who have yet to experience it and to keep this from becoming a novella but trust me it’s rather good. Actually I retract that partially, I urge you to play the first few story quests until you have completed ‘The Way of the Voice’, this gives you a very useful skill which helps you hugely in more difficult fights. At the very least do ‘Dragon Rising’ before commencing your random wanderings since before that dragons will rarely if ever be seen.

The world of ‘Skyrim is simply huge, I genuinely can’t think of anything bigger, if you plan to trek from one end of the map to the other be prepared for a long walk. Luckily you are treated to breathtaking landscapes, skies, random weather and water effects that made me stop and just stare for a bit. This is the best way to experience Skyrim, aimlessly meandering around discovering caves, dungeons, castles and the like. Of course once you’ve found places you can quick travel which is hugely helpful, it would be insane to walk everywhere all the time. Even riding takes time and carts can only take you between major cities which is not always where you want to go but if your anything like me you wont always jump to the nearest possible location or go from waypoint to waypoint but will cover the map in places you haven’t necessarily been into but have discovered for quick travelling back to later on.

Apart from the main quest and general wandering of the world there are several side quests that are long enough to passed off as entire games these days as well as a ridiculous number miscellaneous quests and an infinite, yes infinite, amount of radiant quests. Yes the radiant quests are very straight forward affairs like ‘steal x from y’ or ‘go here and kill whoever’ but they’re there to be completed and you are rewarded each time. The ‘main’ side quests revolve around the major guilds or groups in the game: The College of Winterhold, The Dark Brotherhood, The Thieves Guild, The Civil War and The Companions all need your help and the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild stories were incredibly strong in my opinion.

The game mechanics are a cross between ‘Oblivion’ in that they go up as you use them and a ‘Fallout’ style perk system. The fusion works very well for the most part and is what allows you to play whatever character you like. As you complete actions related to a spell, deal damage with Destruction magic or craft a weapon with Blacksmithing your skill level rises. Raise it enough and the level increases granting an amount of experience to your overall level corresponding to your current character level and the level of the skill increase. Put simply the higher level you are the higher the level of your skill increases need to b e to make a notable impression of the next level. Now this system makes a lot of sense, getting better by doing something is logical and feels more real than adding some points at level up to various areas, however it does have drawbacks. I shall use my thief character as an example of this. Being a thief I snuck about a lot, picked every lock I could find and stole from anybody’s pocket. Whilst hugely entertaining this meant that my sneaking skills levelled up frequently, resulting in my overall character level rising with it. Not a problem until you are out on a main quest perhaps and are faced with a tough enemy who has been levelled to match your character level. The issue is now abundantly clear, my combat and armour skills are drastically lower than the game expects them to be based on my character level which means that if my sneak attack from stealth doesn’t insta-kill the opponent I’m immediately in trouble. This isn’t helped by the games somewhat random decisions as to whether you’re hidden or not. There are times I’ve been detected but nobody is anywhere near but my target and they certainly hadn’t seen me since they weren’t trying to jam a sword in my neck.

That aside the combat system was surprisingly good. Melee combat from first person has always felt clunky and unnatural to me and whilst it is still not perfect it’s certainly the best I’ve ever experienced. Similar to ‘Fallout’ melee with added fancy finishing moves and a more fluid feel I found myself enjoying charging up to people spewing flames from my left hand before sticking them with the sword in my right. Obviously there are some issues; enemies have a tendency to jink radically to the sides meaning misses and frantically spinning round to try and locate them, Dragon Priests in particular are right bastards for this. The main combat mechanic I was massively impressed with was archery. Archery in video games has in my experience always been utter rubbish which saddens me, not so in ‘Skyrim’. Equipping a bow and taking to my quest I was apprehensive but had to try because I sort of wish I was Robin Hood, I hid in some shadows, held down the trigger and drew the string back, lined up the shot and loosed the arrow, ‘Thunk, scream, dead bandit’. Amazed I tried again on the next victim with the same results. If you can sneak up on your enemy to gain your X2 bonus (X3 if you take a perk) and have a perk or two to increase archery damage the first guy you shoot is probably going to die, letting you quickly eliminate or drastically weaken priority targets before drawing the next arrow and starting on the underlings. Immensely satisfying and I could finally use a bow in a game and not be horrifically underpowered. Once you take perks for zooming in and slowing down time (at a cost of draining stamina) you won’t often miss and can take out most small groups before they realise what’s going on.

Now this wouldn’t a ‘Skyrim’ discussion without talk of a few glitches here and there. This was of course expected as it usually is with a Bethesda title and there clearly are some. I elected to get the Xbox version as my desk is nowhere near comfortable enough to sit at for the sheer number of hours I would be spending in front of this game and I have had quite a few freezes on loading screens and one or two in game as well. Apart from that, the occasional frame rate dive and some issues with dragon corpses not behaving quite properly I only had one other issue. That said it was a big one. The first time I tried to complete the Thieves Guild quests the second one didn’t trigger, I was told who to speak to and should have been given the quest then and there but wasn’t. 20 hours later I decided to carry on that particular path so consulted my quest log to find no mention of the quest I thought should be there. Consulting a guide I found the person I was meant to talk to and they didn’t have the required speech option. A quick internet search told me this was apparently a common problem and there was nothing I could do about it.

In spite of its problems I simply adore this game; I dare not glance at my playtime anymore for fear of the sheer number of hours I’ve poured into the world of Tamriel. The vastness of the world, the beauty of the surroundings and the completely immersive experience as a whole make for a truly magnificent game. It has a feel to it unlike anything I’ve experience and while it may not be the greatest game ever made it easily puts most anything form the last few years to shame. This is an RPG worthy of your attention unlike some others I will not mention again, though you probably know to what I’m referring. Watch out for ‘Fallout 4’ or whatever they decide to call it. Using the engine from ‘Skyrim’ and keeping a few of it’s choice elements such as being able to save your perks for later rather than forcing you to take them at level up that game could further redefine the modern open world RPG. So that’s it, review over and didn’t make one ‘Arrow in the knee’ joke, somewhat proud of myself. Now it’s off to my new time sink ‘Star Wars: The Old Republic’, more on that to come in the near future!

93%

Modern Warfare... what's the point?

So it's finally upon us, the years 'biggest release' has arrived in stores and provided those of us that happen to work in one of said stores a day you would normally undergo in Hell for some heinous crime. Well that is if the deluded masses... sorry religous people, are right and there is such a place, but anyway back on topic. 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3' has been released after months of held breath, near uncontrolable excitement or complete and utter disdain (delete as appropriate).

This is as close to a review of 'MW3' you'll get from me, being as I am in the third of the mindsets I just described. Whilst I'm funding my games myself on my budget of not a lot I can't afford to buy games I have no interest in simply for review purposes. This instead will be mostly about how I 'don't get' Call of Duty, not at all.

It's well known now I expect that I dislike FPS games as a general rule and COD chief among them is not exempt from this. Before people rage about not being able to have an opinon without playing them let it be known that I played Modern Warfare, finished it on whatever hardest mode is called and throughout the entire thing barely ever had a moment of fun, nothing put a smile on my face or felt like I'd achieved anything difficult. Strategy seemed completely irrelevant as trial and error was more than enough to get through any situation, even the 'stealth level' was painfully non challenging. I even tried 'Modern Warfare 2', but 30 minutes in I realised I played the game before when it was called 'Modern Warfare'. To give them their dues they are well oiled shooters, I'm sure they're good games (well one good game with a load of different titles) but I don't like them.

One of the things that bugs me the most is the insistence by the people that buy these games that the multiplayer is all they're really for. Now I take issue with this on multiple fronts. Firstly, I'm an anti-social misanthropic person who with very few exceptions will not play with other people. Secondly no game should be released on the basis that the multiayer is the core of the content unless it's an mmo OR it doesn't pretend to have a noteworthy single player. COD is neither of these.

The other thing that really gets me are the sorts of people who generally buy these games. They assume that as a gamer I must play them and upon learning that I don't look at me like I'm crazy. I cannot see the appeal of playing the exact same levels against random, often irritating people. These same people will be the ones who won't play RPGs because 'random battles are repetative.' Well done genius, fuck off back to your 500th match on the same damn map.

In conclusion, I dislike Call of Duty (in case you missed that). A well made but tedious, bland and unfulfilling game it is sure to be. The multiplayer being what appears to be the main focus of the game alienates the single player market and completely ostracises anyone looking for anything deep or even remotely interesting in terms of story or characters. Don't give me the rubbish that these games have a good story, I shall simply laugh at you and direct you to something more engaging things, like 'Spot the Dog'.

Not just backing sounds

             Music is essential to almost all video games, there are very few exceptions to this rule and sports games are the only ones I can think of and even then there is something to be said for it. Even the mentally challenged sheep poring hours and hours into Call of Duty have a backing score which they may not notice is there, but definitely would realise something was different if it weren’t. Arguably the most important video game scores are those for RPGs where the gamer is led to identify with characters and situations, the correct music must be employed to ensure not only you engage fully with the game but should the music be wrong the opposite can occur and the illusion completely dispelled. Luckily for us there are plenty of games where the musical score is precisely what is needed and to my mind the most striking combination of games and more importantly composer of such pieces is, and here’s a shocker, Final Fantasy and Nobuo Uematsu. Don’t worry this isn’t just a fanboy raving about his favourite series again… well not much anyway, there’s a point to it all and to this latest rambling of mine though granted it is slightly different than usual.

            ‘Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy’, a concert of popular tracks from the legendary series, has been touring the world for a while now and finally made it to London last night and I was lucky enough to get a hold of a pair of tickets for myself and a close friend who shares my love for Final Fantasy and for game soundtracks. So comfortably overdressed as we turned out to be we headed for London’s Royal Albert Hall for an evening of orchestral excellence. Upon arrival we discovered that the last minute tickets I managed to get were in fact rather good, centrally located, on the floor and about 10 feet from the stage and settled down for the show, after dashing to a merchandise stand to grab programmes, copies of the FFVII Original Soundtrack and in my case a t-shirt as well. 

            The atmosphere in the hall was incredible. Completely packed with fans of the series, possibly a few begrudging partners dragged along but even they couldn’t have been disgruntled once the orchestra started playing. The show kicked off with Nobuo himself taking the stage to rapturous applause, closely followed by conductor Arnie Roth leading the musicians in the Prelude which is synonymous with the opening menu screen of the series before launching into the sublime and nostalgia inducing Liberi Fatali from Final Fantasy VIII’s opening sequence. I have never been to a classical concert before and was therefore unsure what to expect, what took me slightly by surprise was how much these songs affected me. Goosebumps and butterflies in my stomach were not the results I had anticipated but none the less this is what occurred.  

            Rather than give a play by play of the entire event I shall just skip to the end which was met with a standing ovation, an encore of ‘One Winged Angel’ and a second standing ovation. The evening was unlike anything I have ever experienced and helped to show me something I have always held to be true. Music is an incredibly powerful tool and perhaps this is more apparent in video games than any other medium. The fact that The Royal Albert Hall, a large and prestigious theatre, was filled to capacity for both this event and one the previous week for the ‘Zelda Symphony’ concert is proof that music in games is more than just the sounds in the background. It breaths life into the games and seen performed live the true significance is mind blowing and made abundantly clear. My friend and I are already keeping an eye out for tickets for the return of ‘Distant Worlds’ next year to commemorate Final Fantasy’s 25^th anniversary, I urge you to do the same.