C'mon fatty.

When I completed Metal Gear Solid I received the dismal rating of ‘Hyena’ for my efforts. As I clocked Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty this week I sat through the credits eagerly awaiting my rating, certain that I’d done better than I had at the first game. I looked forward to receiving an animal rating that was cooler than Hyena, a rating equivalent to a smooth and sinister creature that embodied stealth, cunning, and slick manoeuvers.

The stats for the number of times I’d saved, used a continue, murdered people, and alerted the guards through clumsiness flashed up.

They were alarmingly high. I took a screenshot and then pressed X to take me to my rating. The word ‘Elephant’ appeared on the screen, coupled with this fat little elephant wiggling his trunk.

Oh dear.

I looked up the rankings online. They’re based on the aforementioned saves/continues/murders criteria. However, if certain conditions are met then the player will receive a “Special Ranking”. It turns out that these special rankings are not always complimentary, and because I’d used so many health rations I was given the rank of Elephant. It's fair to say was not too impressed with myself.

I was, however, pleased to note that my other statistics would have earned the equivalent of the ranking of Mongoose, were it not for my rampant ration consumption. And Mongoose is one better than Hyena, so technically there was improvement to the sneaky murdering aspect of my game.

I now can’t wait to tackle Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. I never finished it when it first came out probably because I was distracted by another game coming out and I never went back to it (that old chestnut). I’m really looking forward to the fact that Snake Eater is set in the jungle, rather than simply being in another military installation. Having refamiliarised myself with the first two games, I think I can get a decent rating this time, and not through manipulation either; I don’t reload my save files to fudge the stats if my cover gets blown, or if I die. Hopefully I’ll be able to be super sneaky; camouflage myself accordingly, use terrain to my advantage, crawl silently through long grass, and finally get a ranking I can be proud of. But seeing as I play like a fat little elephant, I probably won’t.

London. Acid. City.

Many people moaned about the ending of Mass Effect 3, enough people that I don’t feel the need to chime in with my take on whether it’s good, bad, or the worst thing to happen to gaming since whatever it was those people were moaning about the week before Mass Effect 3 came out.

I didn’t really care. I knew that the game wasn’t going to have a complex branching system that contained dozens of possible endings, like in Heavy Rain. It seemed obvious that there’d be slight variations in the endings based upon who lived, who died, and what colour jumper you had Commander Shepherd wearing when you started the last mission. I cared about whether I had fun playing the game itself. So I jumped in and thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in the game, soaking up the fantastic worlds, characters, music, and atmosphere. It was truly about the journey and not the destination for me.

What I loved most about Mass Effect 3 was that it felt like the video game version of the last few seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine when the entire Alpha Quadrant was at war with the invading Dominion. The first two Mass Effect games had set the scene, introduced us to the species and shady organisations that populated the universe, outlined threats, and shaped alliances. The third game then threw the galaxy into all out war and the work done in the first couple of games meant that I was fully invested in this rich and detailed experience.

As a Londoner I also loved that the last big fight to save the galaxy took place in my home town. I was even amused to see the famous red phone boxes amongst the ruined remains of my old stomping ground, which is normally that sort of thing really annoys me no end. Yes, that’s right Americans, red phone boxes are on every corner, we all drive minis with union jacks on the roof, we all have butlers, and eat nothing but fish and chips and crumpets. It’s like a Hugh Grant movie come to life!

Still, all wanky stereotyping aside, I was glad that the major Earth city being destroyed wasn’t New York, the go-to destination in movies and games for famous landmark destruction and devastation. It made for a nice change.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see one of my favourite London landmarks pop up in the racing game Dirt3 that I've been making a dent in. Dirt3 has a practice/stunt section at Battersea Power Station, a location made world-famous in that made-for-TV MacGyver movie in the mid-90s, where it doubled as a defunct Soviet Nuclear power plant. It’s a fantastic, iconic building that was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who was also responsible for the famous red phone boxes coincidentally enough.

Last time I was back in London I bought a mug that has Battersea Power station on it. Look, here’s a picture:

Anyway, when I purchased Dirt3 it was on a whim. I was looking for a rally game that would capture the great times I had playing games like V-Rally back in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Unfortunately this is not what I got. Dirt3 has several big problems. The first is that for every one minute you spend playing the game, you spend another three in loading screens. You do a 90 second rally section, then there’s a three-minute loading screen. You then pick your next activity to race, and once again there’s two or three minutes of menus, loading, and general thumb twiddling. To make things worse the loading screens are accompanied by some terrible music, a whole heap of autotune, chart music drivel, the sort you used to see featured on those mobile phone ringtone ads on TV.

Then, to add insult to injury they have decided to assault your ears some more by having three complete dickheads ‘narrate’ your rise to racing stardom, giving you tips and updates over the lengthy loading screens for the entire game with no way to turn them off! But at least they’ve got a nice mix of nationalities to piss off everyone and keep shitty international stereotypes chugging along nicely.

First off you have the posh English girl, a typical Sloane Ranger who has an undercurrent to her voice that says, “I’m prim and proper, but I’d love a good rogering.” She updates you on the various racing teams’ interest in your particular skills, but her lame congratulations seem forced and oddly condescending.

Next up there’s a nasal Aussie who is supposed to give you car and course advice, and who can only be described as being a totally useless turd. Honestly, the guy once told me before a race that ‘being the fastest driver is a good strategy for success’, without even a hint of irony. I’m just shocked he hasn’t said ‘Crikey!’ yet. Well, give it time, I suppose.

Then comes the biggest twat of them all, the Yank college jock arsehole who spouts utter nonsense about how everything is ‘Sick, Broseph!’ ‘Rad to the max!’ and so on, before chugging another shit American lite beer, chanting ‘show your tits’ to a bunch of underage spring break girls, and then stumbling off to dabble in some date rape.

If your ears can stand this unholy triumvirate of fucktards and their awful background music, and if you have the patience to partake in more loading screens than actual gaming, then surprisingly enough there’s actually a fun little racer to be found here. It’s just a shame you have to wait at the endless traffic light loading screens, put your brain into reverse, and then navigate the chicanes of ear-bleeding douchebaggery to find out what it actually has under the hood.

Oh, I almost forgot, this game even has a ‘Cheat Button’. If you crash you can actually press a button that rewinds the action five seconds, and then you can try not to smash into that house at the side of the road this time. Not only that, but you can do this five times in each event! Seeing as most events are only 60-90 seconds long you pretty much can’t fail.

So if you like your games to feature annoying Lady Gaga style music over loading screens that never end, obnoxious dickheads gabbing at you the whole time, and consequence free racing, then this is the game for you.

I’ve done about a third of it so far, and I can tell you I’m pretty sure it might not be for me.

Come On You Whites!!

I always knew that playing through this many games would be a tough slog. There were always going to be stretches where I didn’t get to play very much. I thought that setting myself the task of playing one game of FIFA a week to coincide with the real life Premier League season would enable me to slowly eat away at that title while concentrating on others at the same time. I fully anticipated that I’d be making excuses and apologies for not having played that much or completed any games for a while. I’d hoped it would be further down the track, not a mere two months into my journey.

So I’m sorry I haven’t been updating the weekly results of my virtual Fulham FC. The reason is that I’ve been enjoying playing FIFA so much that I couldn’t contain myself to one game a week! The more I played, the more I enjoyed it, and the more I learnt. I steered the murky waters of its myriad menus. I plumbed the depths and managed to find controls that had previously remained hidden. I enjoyed trying out skill moves and shooting with finesse. I mastered the lobbed through-ball. I raced ahead and completed my season. Here’s how the table ended up.

9th. A top ten finish. Not that bad really! The season had it’s lowlights, losing 2-1 to Wolves at Craven Cottage was a notably shameful occurrence, but it had it’s highlights too including winning 3-0 at Old Trafford, and putting five past Liverpool at Anfield. I ended up joint top in terms of clean sheets, and if you look closely at the picture of the table you can see that two of my players were in the top four scorers for the season with 21 goals. I found that I played much better once I’d turned off the repetitive and annoying commentators. I also performed better with the best part of a bottle of red inside me. All in all I thought I did The Mighty Fulham proud for a FIFA noob.