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!

Well that was short, and not particularly sweet.

It only took me about 5 or 6 hours to play through Medal of Honor (<- insert u). It was actually quite lucky that the game was so short, it was pretty irritating at times, and a longer experience would have gone from mildly infuriating to full on annoying.

Come to think of it, the game would have been shorter had I not happened across two game breaking bugs that forced me to restart two missions from the beginning. On one occasion my AI teammates were supposed to open a door so that we could proceed on our merry way, but they just sat in cover and there was no way to advance through the mission. Reset, plus a little swearing. Another time the beardy dude I was on a sniping mission with ploughed headlong through a door without even opening it, Patrick Swayze in Ghost style, and I was left on the other side with no way to progress through to the next area. Reset, plus a whole heap of swearing.

The game was full of bugs like this coupled with bad design choices. Graphical glitches were commonplace, most character’s feet and ankles were submerged a foot beneath whatever it was that they were supposed to be standing on. They’d then pop up to their proper place, before slowly sinking back down to mid-shin. I wasn’t allowed to open doors by myself, I could only do so only when told to. If we needed to hop a small waist high wall I had to wait for each of my squad to do so before I was offered the vault button prompt, lest I go before them and upset the pecking order. At other times I was required to do a ‘buddy boost’ up walls about seven feet high. I was such a rubbish soldier that I had to be pulled up these walls, and then watch on with shame in my heart and tears behind my night vision goggles as my supple and athletic teammates leapt up these same walls without any need for assistance, and certainly no assistance from a withered, feeble little wretch such as the guy as I was playing.

Speaking of which, who exactly was it that was I playing? This was yet another military shooter that throws you around from one faceless, characterless soldier to another. This one’s called Rabbit, this one’s called Douche, this one’s called I don’t fucking know nor rightly care. I knew what my teammates names were though, mainly because they wouldn’t stop running into my line of fire, so much so that I ended up failing several missions for persistent friendly fire.

There were other oddities and annoyances that showed that the game was rushed and lazy. Vehicles exploded without fire. One enemy jeep just jumped up into the air and the doors fell off in an approximation of an explosion. Occasionally grenades that I’d thrown didn’t go off. Sprinting felt like you were running through treacle, probably because my character’s legs were submerged in the earth below, like everyone else’s. You could ask your teammates for ammo, and when near enough to them a prompt would appear on screen. The problem was that this prompt came up whether you needed ammo or not, so every time I went near an ally I’d be like “Oh what’s this message, oh not again, no I don’t want ammo!!!” Why did it have to pop up every time, why couldn’t it do so only when I was low on ammo? Stupid game.

I hadn’t planned to talk about each and every game’s credits after discussing the lengthy credits of SOCOM 4, and I certainly hadn’t intended to look for amusing names in these credits, but CG Coordinator ‘Barry Poon’ certainly deserves a mention. Thankfully the credits ran for only 11 minutes, which was greatly appreciated because they featured one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard. I looked it up and it was by Linkin Park. Ugh. Here’s a link for you. It’s really, really bad. You have been warned. 

I think I’ve had my fill of military shooters for a while now. And so I’m going to go from one glitchy, bug filled game to another. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been slowly getting back into Skyrim. I know there’s a lot left for me to do, even with ignoring all side quests, and I still find myself getting distracted, wandering off exploring and collecting, so I’ll have to try to be more disciplined with it, otherwise I'll never finish this pile.

17 down, 33 to go.

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.

In the battle of Man Vs Game....

I watch a lot of Man Vs Food, the show that sees human eating machine Adam Richman travelling America and eating a ton of tasty looking stuff. In each episode Adam tackles a local eating challenge of enormous proportions, be it a massive pizza, a five pound burrito, or, the one that sickens/impresses me the most, the time he ate fifteen dozen (180) oysters in 21 minutes.

Adam has since given up the challenges due to what I can only assume is the pressure of his doctor and loved ones worried for the state of his now seriously clogged arteries. So Adam now hosts Man Vs Food Nation, which sees him still visiting great pig-out joints, but coaching members of the public as they attempt the ridiculous sort of challenges that Adam’s poor, weakened heart and bowels can no longer endure.

Adam’s advice to these challengers is to keep a steady pace, and when the food starts to get to you, when everything starts to feel and taste the same, then the best thing you can do is to mix it up. Add condiments, change the texture, anything to give yourself the power to push on through.

There are many similarities between my commitment to tackle my huge pile of shame, and a Man Vs Food challenge. It’s an attempt to cram a load of something I love into a short space of time. Sometimes I get discouraged halfway through playing a title. Other times I feel like puking just from looking at the size of the task at hand, coupled with how much I’ve already devoured. When I get like that, I think of Adam.  

Before his untimely retirement Adam would always push through for the good of Man. He may have failed on occasion, but he’d always give more than seemed humanly possible, always managing to push through the food wall whether he finished the challenge or not. So I’m heeding Adam’s advice in order to push through my own personal wall. I’ve been keeping a steady pace, but things have started to get a bit stale and samey. Now I’m going to mix things up. I’m going to add condiments, change the texture.

About two years ago our friends and neighbours flew to Las Vegas to get married. They were gone for three weeks, and during that time we looked after their cat. When they returned they had bought us gifts to thank us for looking after their baby, and what they had bought me was this, the Sony SharpShooter:

This houses the Playstation’s motion controller, the Move. It let’s you play certain games as if you’re holding a real gun, just like those old arcade machines like Operation Wolf:

I've got two games that utilise the Sharpshooter, Killzone 3 and Socom 4, so I’m going to target them next. I’ve got about halfway through both games, so I should finish them off pretty quickly. It’ll be a totally different experience to just sitting back, feet up, with a controller in my hands. The combination of the Move and the Sharpshooter should be just the right condiments to change the texture.

And someday you'll feed on a tree frog...

What I love about the Metal Gear Solid games is their progressive innovation with each new entry. Every time new mechanics are introduced that hone the gameplay, increase the immersion, and provide a stellar entertainment experience. It’s never a huge jump that changes things dramatically. You can’t suddenly drive cars or fly helicopters. It’s always about the little touches.

In Metal Gear Solid the guards were there to be avoided and, at times, fought. You could bang on a wall to distract them one way, and then sneak past them on the other side. In MGS2 we were thrilled to discover that you could now interact with their dead or tranquilised bodies. You could hide them, stuff them into lockers, or throw them over the side of a ship. Not only that but you could sneak up behind unsuspecting guards, draw your gun and hold them at gunpoint. Aim at certain delicate parts of their anatomy and they’d wiggle their hips and shake out ammo to appease you. You could even shoot out the radio on their jacket so that they couldn’t contact HQ.

Once again in MGS3 it’s the little touches and advances that make the game so great. This time around you can sneak up and put a knife to your enemies’ throats, prompting them to not only give up ammo but vital information too. Interrogate them successfully and they’ll reveal the location of nearby weapons, pinpoint the location of other guards on your map, and they’ll even tell you which radio frequencies to call for health top ups and alert cancellation. From there you can use them as a human shield, choke them out, or slit their throats, it's up to you.

People always wonder when Jack Bauer gets the time to eat during one of his day long missions to save the world, and it's nice to see that this sort of thinking has been incorporated here. As Snake you're dropped into the jungle with no supplies, which means that you need to procure equipment onsite, including food. You're required to eat the local flora and fauna to keep your stamina and health up. If you don’t eat enough your stomach starts to grumble madly, loudly enough to be heard by suspicious guards and give away your position. 

You don't have to just stop at eating those little critters either,  you can capture poisonous animals and then throw them at the guards who’ll get bitten and die. If you fancy messing with the guards some more you can blow up their food storage huts and then nearby guards will be wandering around moaning about their aching bellies. Throw some rotten food at them, watch them gobble it up, and enjoy the messy consequences. All these touches and more combine with the established sneaky gameplay to make a rich and diverse experience.

This was the least convoluted, most streamlined entry in the series so far. There was minimal backtracking to previously completed areas. There was a huge decrease in the amount of time spent in the codec conversations, the weakest part of the Metal Gear Solid series. Who really wants to sit there watching two static heads have a conversation that is subtitled below them? And sometimes for 15 minutes at a time?!  Thankfully they were kept to a minimum here. MGS3 had the purest, uncluttered story, with minimal pointless jibber-jabber.

Of course, Hideo Kojima ultimately couldn’t help himself. It all got a bit flowery before the very end fight with ‘The Boss’, and she crapped on for about fifteen minutes about her life story. Then there were double crosses and even triple crosses all being thrown around in the last ten minutes, but by then it didn’t matter. The entire experience preceding that had been so enjoyable that I didn’t care. Even the crazy lyrics of the game’s Bond-esque theme song that make up the title for this post couldn’t dampen my enthusiasm for this one.

This is one of the best games I have ever played.

And now, without further ado, let’s get to the real story. What codename did I get upon completion? When replaying MGS and MGS2 recently I kind of rushed through them, receiving the codenames of Hyena and Elephant respectivey. Having completed them both before, and wanting to get them out of the way so I could get to this one, I threw caution to the wind. In this playthrough I was much more invested in a properly stealthy approach. I took my time and used every advantage I could. And I feel that I did pretty damn good. Behold, here is my ranking of.....

Panther! Not too shabby, I’m very happy with that!

So part of me wants to dive straight into Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, whereas another part thinks I should try to finish a previously started game first. I haven’t decided, I’ll have to have a think about it. Not for long though, I've still got a long way to go.

15 down, 35 to go.

Thank God (of War) for HD re-releases.

There’s always hesitation when approaching anything labelled as a ‘classic’ for the first time, whether it’s a movie, an album, or a video game. Will it live up to its famed status? Has it aged well?

When that classic has also undergone an HD facelift, it throws up an additional question. Will it still be good despite the tinkering? (I’m thinking of the terrible Star Wars Special Editions here.)

In the case of God of War I feel that I can safely answer “Very much so!” for all three questions.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, and I’m baffled as to how I missed it when it first came out. It does almost everything right. Fun, exciting combat, good progression of weapons and magical abilities, excellent level design, puzzles that are rewarding rather than frustrating, and a rousing score that carries you through the frantic hack and slash mayhem.

There were a couple of annoying bits, the last boss fight was a little cheap, and in the final third there’s a filler side trip to Hades that was full of infuriating platforming coupled with the game’s most annoying enemies, the dive-bombing Harpies. But that bit was short-lived and didn’t detract too much from the overall greatness of this game.

I’m very impressed with the work done by Bluepoint Games, who’ve overseen the HD updates for this game and the one that I’d completed previously, Metal Gear Solid 2. They’ve done a fantastic job with these titles. So, a tip of the hat to those fellows.

And one of the things I liked most about God of War was the score. It reminded me of many things. Sometimes in the midst of battle it urged me on with cues that sounded like they came from Lord of the Rings, in other dark and dingy moments it reminded me of an old Orbital tune. Every now and then there’d be a puzzle section without any combat, and in these pensive lulls the music reminded me of the moody synthesiser soundtrack to the movie The Warriors.

Considering that there’re a few classics in my pile I’m glad I started with one that has delivered. I can now approach those other famous moments in gaming history a little more optimistically than I had been previously.

But first, I’ll embark upon another odyssey with Bluepoint Games, in the form of Metal Gear Solid 3:Snake Eater.

14 down. 36 to go.

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.