If Matrix were here, he'd laugh too.

I’ve not really talked about game credits yet, which is surprising as I’ve sat through 16 different sets of credits in the last three months. I just finished SOCOM 4, and the credits for that game ran for an incredible amount of time, 26 minutes. The audio guys obviously knew that they were running for far too long to be considered appropriate, because after 15 minutes of the game’s main theme they did a five minute old school 8-bit rendition of it, before then switching back to a little six minute reprise of the orchestral version.

They were like the credits from a Ubisoft game, the perpetrators of the lengthiest credits up to this point in my journey, with Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Driver: San Francisco both sporting incredibly chunky offerings.

I wouldn’t mind if there were thrilling things happening in these credits, or at least some pertinent info that was being imparted, but it’s mainly just useless listings. What’s the point in crediting some of these people? How much was the ‘Digital Distribution Manager of the Playstation Store’ really responsible for the game I just played, and honestly, who really gives a shit who that person is anyway?

Best name spotted in the mammoth credits? Edmund Zoo. Not sure what he did exactly, I was too busy cocking one eyebrow and nodding in amused approval as I noted his name.

I should also have noted the names of the people that did the additional voices for the enemies in SOCOM 4, as they featured a plethora of ridiculous accents. Cheesy South African, Cockney, and Aussie accents made it sound like they’d hired a bunch of tough guy actors from Lethal Weapon 2 and EastEnders, along with Bennett off Commando, then just got them drunk and recorded them messing about whilst taking the piss out their own acting.

But, aside from credit complaints and voice acting gripes, I actually didn’t think this one was too bad. Sure, it featured a totally generic, forgettable story, a bunch of barely sketched soldiers blowing stuff up for whatever nonsense reason they were going on about. But some of the missions were quite fun, and it was good to try out a variety of tactics through the directions you could issue to your squad.

I’m not really sure how the experience would have been using a normal controller, but I found that the Move and Sharpshooter combo was pretty enjoyable really. It was hard to calibrate perfectly, it would always end up a little off. It was floaty, and subsequently strayed as you played, but it was solid enough to still be playable. It suffered a little from the third person over-the-shoulder perspective as this sort of light gun game benefits from being in first person. There were also several sneaking levels, which were rather difficult to navigate. Stealth requires tight control and pinpoint movement, something the Sharpshooter doesn’t afford, and it was at its best when you were laying waste to a crowd with a hefty machine gun.

One other drawback was a physical one. I found that holding the gun up for extended periods was far too much effort for someone as lazy as me, so elbows on knees it was. Unfortunately the swiveling movement associated with aiming resulted in red, chafed knees. But I soldiered on, and ultimately it was an enjoyable afternoon spent finishing this one off, despite what my poor old knees had to say about it. I think I’ll save Killzone 3, the other Move compatible game in the pile, for another time when I’m again feeling the need for something different.

I loved the fact that this one was easy to get out of the way quickly, so I’m going with another military shooter that’s probably quite short for my next game, Medal of Honor. 

16 down, 34 to go.

Two more down. The horror!

Two games completed this week! They were...

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

After the initial apprehension I had for this game I ended up quite liking it! The storyline and missions were more streamlined than in previous instalments, and I enjoyed running around Constantinople a lot more than I did Rome in AC: Brotherhood. There were some elements that I felt didn’t work too well. I wasn’t that into the bomb making or the ‘Den Defence’ sections, and for brevity’s sake I ignored some of the tedious side missions. But I had fun and I think that overall I enjoyed this one more than Brotherhood.

I also finished off Little Big Planet. I only had five or six levels left to do on this one, and it was a nice change of pace from the shooters and military themed games I’ve been completing over the last month.

So with another two out of the way I’m making good progress. However, I’ve been feeling that lately I’m falling back into old habits. I’m flitting from game to game. A little bit of Assassin’s Creed here, some Little Big Planet there. I also put Dirt 3 in and had a couple of races on that. Then sometimes I’d I stare at Metal Gear Solid 2 and think, hmm, maybe I’ll do a bit of sneaking…

I need to be more organised. Create a better structure for getting through this pile of shame. I need mini deadlines to help me get through, otherwise it all seems like too great a task. I need a theme that will allow me to allocate four or five games that I can commit to finishing by the end of the month.

So, seeing as Halloween is approaching I thought that Horror Month might be exactly what I need to get focused! With that decided, I took a look at the horror games in The Pile. There’s a few too many to realistically get finished in the next four weeks. So these are the ones that I’ve decided I want to get finished by Halloween.

Alan Wake

I got this game a couple of years ago (for my birthday, of course) and played about half to two thirds of it. I was enjoying it even though it had its flaws. I wrote a piece that was published in Game Informer AU lamenting the game’s ridiculous carrot dangling and goalpost moving. I didn’t intend to abandon this game, but as per bloody usual I saw something shiny and game shaped out of the corner of my eye and promptly left this one on the shelf unfinished.

Then a terrible event occurred; ‘The Great 360 Hard Drive Disaster of 2011’. I was still using the 20 GB hard drive that had come with my 360 back in 2007, and I saw a deal on one of those ‘Deal of the day’ sites that was a 60GB hard drive and a new headset. Perfect!

I needed a new headset because of a catastrophe that predated the ‘G360HDDof2011’. The cat had jumped onto my lap while I was playing online and wearing the headset; she’d got caught in the wire that connected the controller to the headset, had a fit and jumped off in terror, ripping the wires out of their sockets, rendering them useless. The headset flew off my head and broke into three pieces against the door. What can I say, she’s a big cat.

So I purchased this deal and received my new hard drive. I went online to find out the best way to transfer the data from hard drive A to hard drive B. Stupidly ignoring the advice to use a Microsoft approved transfer cable (it was 25 bucks!) I followed the instructions for using a flash drive for the transfer.

I copied all my original data onto the flash drive, and went to install it onto drive B. The data wasn’t there. So I tried again. It still wasn’t there. I then discovered that not only had this procedure not copied the data to the flash drive, but it had removed all the data from my original hard drive as well.

Hilarious.

All of my game saves since 2007 had been destroyed in an instant, and there was no way to retrieve them. This is a massive part of the reason that so many of my Xbox 360 games sit there unfinished.

I have to start them all over again.

This is the case with Alan Wake.

What a pain in the arse.

(The headset works fine though)

Aliens vs. Predator

When I was a kid I spent almost every day, night, and weekend obsessing over Aliens, Predator, Robocop, and The Terminator. I owned all the movies, comics, magazines, collector’s cards, toys, models, games, special effects books, everything that related to these movies that I could get my hands on. My friend Louis and I just couldn’t get enough. Every Saturday we’d spend hours in Forbidden Planet and various other comic and collectables shops in London’s West End.

If I’d played this game in 1990 I would have wet my pants in joyous excitement. If I’d played this game in 2000 it would have been awesome. But unfortunately this game seems to be stuck somewhere in the early noughties. It ignores obvious advancements in the genre (and gaming in general), such as the ability to crouch, or aim down your gun’s sights, or use a flashlight, and is generally just a bit rubbish. And the fact that it’s almost the same game as Aliens vs. Predator 2 that came out for PC and Mac in 2001 is far too evident. It’s a crying shame. The thirteen year old in me tries to be positive about it, I want to love it, but unfortunately I can’t.

I’ve no idea how far I’d gotten through this one before abandoning it in disappointment. There are three campaigns, human, predator, and alien. If I had to guess I’d say I’ve done two thirds of the human portion, a third of the predator bit, and five minutes of the alien one. So I think finishing this one will be a bit of a joyless slog for me. There are some good moments in this, but too much that just feels unevolved.  

Dead Space 2

The first Dead Space was great, the haunted house in space setting was right up my alley. It featured genuine scares and tension.

I haven’t started this one yet, so I’m hoping to start it and get it done in a couple of fat sessions over a couple of days. I really want to soak up the atmosphere of this one.

And lastly we have here a horrible game, truly devoid of humanity, emotion, and joy, a game that chills me to my bones.

The last game that I want to get finished in Horror Month is…

LA Noire

Ugh. I don’t like this game. I was really, really excited for it. There aren’t enough detective games. I was looking forward to examining evidence, piecing together puzzles, and using lateral thinking to discover the truth. Unfortunately it was a game that promised a lot, but actually delivered very little. Its graphical achievements were legitimately fantastic, but it was repetitive, featured a blatantly flawed interrogation system, restricted you at almost every level, and basically played itself.

I’d had visions of having two suspects with evidence that pointed to both. I would then have to interrogate them, look at their answers in conjunction with the evidence, and determine which of them was guilty.

Unfortunately the only time this happened you actually knew that neither of them was the killer. Yet the game made you accuse and arrest one, even though you knew it to be bullshit. Your boss then had a right go at you because the guy was innocent. Wow, way to reward the player. Who wrote this shit?!

I wrote this piece for the Sydney Morning Herald’s video game blog that pretty much sums up my feelings about this game. Not sure whether I should do this in a couple of big chunks, or do one case a night over the next couple of weeks. Dragging it out might make it worse!

FIFA 12 - Virtual Fulham

My virtual Fulham had an ok couple of weeks, played twice, lost one, won one, which was better than their real life counterparts who only managed a draw out of their two games. They started their Horror Month before I did.

Here are the current standings:

Virtual Fulham FC

 POS   P   W   D   L   GD   PTS

    6      7    3     3    1     6      12

The Real Fulham FC

POS    P   W   D   L   GD   PTS

   9       7    3     1   3     4       10

So that's all for now, I've still got a lot of (scary) work ahead of me. I'm off to go and play in the dark. 

That sounds so wrong.

“C’mon, let’s enjoy life!” - Legendary hardman and notorious killer Solid Snake.

In 1998/99 I was living in Nottingham, England. My girlfriend at the time had moved up there to go to Uni, and I’d gone along for the ride. I spent a lot of my time playing PlayStation, and in particular Metal Gear Solid. I also spent a lot of time going to this dodgy club called The Lenton, and buying bags of dodgy skunk off some dodgy Rastafarians.

Actually, that’s not fair. The Rastas were cool guys, and their weed was really good. So good in fact that it must have blinded me to the fact that the end of Metal Gear Solid is a ridiculously sloppy love fest that bears no resemblance to the hardcore action game that precedes it. After defeating the last of the baddies, Snake and his love interest Meryl are directed to a snowmobile and prepare to drive off into the sunset past a couple of moose.

As they walk to the vehicle there’s an uplifting voiceover about choosing life, living life, and, once again, choosing life. Meryl then finds a sweaty old bandana on the snowmobile. “Let’s keep it as a souvenir!” Snake cries chirpily, as if this stinky old headband will somehow remind them of this experience. Remind them in a good way, of course. Nothing says terrorist nuclear threat, death, murder, betrayal, loss, and fratricide better than taking home some random’s second-hand headwear.

Snake then utters the line that's the title of this post, and off they drive, past the moose (or as Snake points out, the Caribou) and the game ends. Fuck me, I must have been really stoned to have witnessed that and not remembered!

At the end of the credits you’re given a rundown of your performance and a rating in the form of an animal. Here, for your amusement, is my dismal performance rating:

                           

Look at that. Shameful. It tells the story of an impatient playthrough. I looked up the animal rankings, and there are twelve for each difficulty level. 'Hyena' is ranked tenth out of the twelve for ‘Normal’ difficulty. Oh dear, how embarrassing.

I’ll try not to rush when I play MGS 2: Sons of Liberty. Hopefully as I play through each of the Metal Gear games I’ll get better. I actually realised last night that 10% of my Pile of Shame are Metal Gear Games! Not sure if that means anything, I just noticed it and thought it was interesting.

I actually didn’t mean to finish Metal Gear last night. I’d intended to complete Battlefield 3, but I played for about twenty minutes and then this happened:

Make of that what you will. It was an interesting glitch. They wouldn’t advance, there were no enemies to fight, and if I ventured too far I was told to get back to the battle. I tried shooting these guys, stabbing them, and chucking grenades at them, but nothing got them to move. I reloaded the game from the previous checkpoint in the hope that the issue would resolve itself, and there was improvement. This time only three of them decided to occupy the same point in space and time:

Look at these idiots.

I guess I’ll load it up from the beginning of that mission next time to see if that helps, but it was so infuriating that I didn’t want to continue with it, so that’s why I loaded up Metal Gear instead.

So now that’s finished I need to decide what to play next! I’m a bit over shooting stuff. I think I need a new setting. One of the things that makes my pile grow is that I start a game, and then the next one is released before I even get a chance to finish it. By then it feels like I’m really far behind the curve, so it’s hard to get the motivation to finish what I already know is an ‘out-dated’ game. So for that reason, seeing as the next iteration of this franchise is coming out in November, I think I may choose…

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

Am I ready for another adventure with Ezio? Fuck, I don’t know.  I thought the first Assassin’s Creed was great but flawed. The second was fantastic; it was the only game I got 1000 achievement points on. I played all the way through the third one, Brotherhood, but felt that by then it was getting pretty stale.

Then we went on a trip to Italy and every place that we visited I kept looking at the architecture and thinking “Assassin’s Creed!!” It really got my juices going for another bout of rooftop clambering and sneaky shanking shenanigans.

Then I fired this one up when I got back from my trip and it was the same old shit. I completed the prologue bit and got to Constantinople, the main setting of the game, looked around a bit and thought “You know what; I can’t be bothered with renovating more banks, tailor shops, and stables.” It seems that with each instalment there’s less sneaking and assassinating. Instead there’s just a ton of loud weapons and multiple minions to do your bidding while you Sim City the place for the ungrateful locals.

I think I’ll just get this one done in a no nonsense fashion by doing as few side missions as possible.