Season's Greetings!

Achievements and trophies are like the doors of a Christmas advent calendar. You open them up as you progress towards your ultimate goal, the end of the game, that double door on the 24^th with the big chocolate behind it.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a visual journey through the trophies and achievements for the games that I’ve completed thus far. These are what have been behind the double doors in my own year-long advent calendar:

1: Bulletstorm

2: Rage

3: Battlefield 3

4: Metal Gear Solid

As Metal Gear Solid has no trophy support here's a reminder of my terrible rating.

5: Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

6: Little Big Planet

7: Aliens Vs Predator

8: LA Noire

9: Driver: San Francisco

10: Dead Space 2

11: FIFA 12

As I didn't 'finish' the game, just played a season, there was of course no trophy stating that the game had been completed. So here's a picture of the virtual me that I created to use in the game. 

12: Mass Effect 3

13:Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

14: God of War

15: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

16: SOCOM 4

17: Medal of Honor

Unfortunately I've been a bit too busy enjoying Christmas to get on with the task at hand, so nothing's been completed lately. Hopefully I'll get back on track once the silly season is over.

Happy New Year!

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.

Happy Halloween!!

Since I embarked upon this endeavour I’ve only completed games that I had previously started, and it was a good way to begin, as I needed to make a sizeable dent in that monstrous pile. That strategy has paid off as I’m now well into the pile without feeling too overwhelmed about what’s ahead.

When I came to tackle the sci-fi horror Dead Space 2 I was looking at starting a game completely fresh, right from the beginning. I wanted to play through it in a really short space of time, and so I attacked it with the intention of blasting through it within a week. It was the complete opposite to the way I’ve been playing my games over the last few years. If you can call leaving them to fester on the shelf ‘playing them’, that is.

It was fantastic to play a game that I hadn’t started months or even years ago. I hadn’t forgotten important characters or major plot points. I wasn’t struggling to remember the controls. I was able to fully digest the game in several big chunks in a short space of time, and it was a refreshing experience.

Of course, it helped that Dead Space 2 is a fun, exciting game with locations and set pieces inspired by Aliens, Event Horizon, and Return of the Jedi. I tore through it and had a blast.

When I’d finished it I looked at Alan Wake, the next game I’d set for my "Horror Month", but I just couldn’t bring myself to play it. I’ve developed some sort of mental block against it. It’s not a bad game, I just can’t be arsed to trudge through it all again after completing so much of it and then losing all the save data in the ‘Great 360 Hard Drive Disaster of 2011’. Not yet anyway.

I needed a change, something I could jump in and out of, so I opted for Driver: San Francisco. It was great to play a racing game that tried something so completely different. The premise that your character is in a coma and driving around a dream world San Francisco in his mind, while possessing the ability to float above the city, jumping into any vehicle he chooses, must have raised a few eyebrows when first pitched, but I’m glad someone had the balls to go with it as I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end. I finished the story elements yesterday, and I find myself struggling not to put the disc back in right now and complete all the race, stunt, and dare challenges that I’ve yet to do.

But I must soldier on, and I decided to start a game I’ve been aching to play, a franchise that I love that was also a victim of the ‘G3HDDof2011’, Mass Effect 3. It was heartbreaking to lose my Mass Effect saves that I’d carried over since starting the trilogy in 2007. All my choices, hard made decisions, sacrifices and victories, gone.

Oh well, whatever, nevermind, within half an hour of starting it up I could see that it never really mattered anyway, and I was so swept up in the thrill and majesty of the Mass Effect universe that I didn’t care. Good God, I love this game.

So with the completion of Dead Space 2 And Driver: San Francisco that brings the number of completed games to 10. I’m 20% of the way through. I’ll be very happy to keep up this pace, but I’m more than aware that there are a lot of games left that I haven’t even started, and there are also a lot of long, time consuming games in there too.

I’d better get my head down.