So, how was it?
Formula 1 has arrived in full 3D glory on 3DS, and it’s every bit as fast and impressive as I hoped! The physics are good, sense of speed fantastic, and the game is not plagued by bugs like the latest console versions. Unfortunately, there’s some bigger fundamental problems that make it a hard game to spend time with.
Look at this man. Isn’t he a rugged, handsome, well-learned individual? He’s not the new Miyamoto, he’s not going to predict the future of videogames, and he wont try to sell you a graphics engine. He’s just a guy who wanted to make a cool game. Mutant Mudds is that cool game.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is a horror game without weapons. You’ve got a flashlight and a map, and the only way to deal with the horrific creatures in the game is to run for your life. It’s a psychological thriller with a world that is constantly adapting to what you learn, and it keeps you on your toes by completely ignoring gaming conventions and doing it’s own thing.
Fresh from my adventures in Bright Falls, I eagerly dove straight into American Nightmare. I had to know what happened next, and I needed to challenge myself further after mastering the gameplay mechanics. Right from the title screen, the newness and individuality of American Nightmare struck me. The words “ARCADE ACTION” got my blood pumping, and I was surprised at the environment in the background, vastly different to what I had seen in Bright Falls. It felt like a sequel, even the font was different. “New Game” fever hit me in a way that had eluded me since I was a kid, and I hadn’t even started playing yet.
Continue reading “Alan Wake’s American Nightmare – Blatantly Awesome”
Pandora’s Tower is one hell of a climb. 12 towers of brutally overpowered enemies, clever puzzles, and awkward camera angles make sure of that. Each tower contains a piece of monster flesh you need to bring back to your vegetarian girlfriend Elena, who suddenly has to eat meat to prevent a curse from turning her into a beast. There’s no real explanation on why all this is happening, but why not? She’s cute! The curse has a time limit, so I better hurry! As I eagerly pursued the first tower, Elena sat in the observatory, awaiting my flesh.
Killzone 2 is EXACTLY what you think it is. A military themed futuristic shooter with amazing graphics, a flashy campaign mode and a few classy dick jokes. I know, it’s 2012. At Pietriots we game according to our budgets and we take our time, because games are fun. Despite being an old predictable shooter, I felt the need to write about it because I was having a good time. The gameplay is quite impressive and the battlefields really feel alive, it was all going gre-
Alan Wake is an enchanting game. When I first played through it on normal difficulty I poked fun at it a lot. The campy setting, repetitive gameplay, awkward animations, and silly concepts were all easy targets for ridicule; yet I still played through all the way to the end. The environments really captured me in their detail, and I was immersed in the bizarre world surrounding the small town of Bright Falls. I was fascinated with the game, but not in love with it. The journey looked and sounded wonderful, but it wasn’t engaging. I reluctantly plodded through the flat gameplay to experience the wonderfully crafted story.
I still had an empty feeling about the game, despite exploring every inch. Long after I completed it I still thought about it, and it became a much bigger force in my mind. At the time, I knew I didn’t really enjoy it a whole lot, but that didn’t stop me from having pleasant thoughts and memories of the game every time my eyes caught the box in my collection. The whole concept of the game was romanticised in my head and it took on something bigger than it was. It was eating at me. Finally I decided; why not? Despite a large backlog of games I haven’t even started yet, I started Alan Wake up again; this time on Nightmare difficulty. Maybe the gameplay was better than I remember? I had to clear this empty space in my mind.
A few years ago, Joy Ride Kinect was released as an example of how a racing game could benefit from Kinect controls. The game was a broken mess, to the point where you could win races without even moving. The developers have finally admitted this was a bad idea, and they’ve re-released the game with new “precision controls” (exact words used in the PR) using the normal Xbox 360 control pad. Joy Ride is finally playable in the form of Joy Ride Turbo, but what’s it like? Was there a nice personality hidden behind that awful piece of technology?
It’s no secret that we, the staff of Pietriots, love Shin’en games. In fact, as part of staff recruitment you have to be sexually aroused by Martin Sauter to be allowed to write for us. I think the reason Martin and the rest of the staff at Shin’en remain so good looking is that none of them have ever actually played mini golf.
YES! A budget racer on Wii, if there’s one genre I know well, it’s this one! I jumped for joy when I saw this game in Kmart, possibly scaring the lady at the counter. There was no sign of Zelda, Xenoblade, or The Last Story on the shelves, but sure enough: 20 copies of Crash Car Racer! It has to be good, right? At $15AU I had to find out.
The name Crash Car Racer does a pretty good job telling you what it is: a racing game with cars that crash. However, it’s not really ABOUT crashing, it’s just a normal racing game that happens to have completely broken physics, conducive to crashes. The disconnected car handling, poorly programmed AI, and bizarre tracks all combine to create a game that pretty much crashes itself every lap, no matter what you do.
Here we go, another Zelda game; puzzles, bosses, exploring, fighting. You know the drill. Or do you? I never intended to review Skyward Sword, because I thought everyone would buy it and love the shit out of it and we’d all happily talk about our favourite parts and hold hands. Much to my disgust and surprise as I scan the twitterverse and look at sales trends, it seems gamers have let this one slip away. With some time and perspective now I can see why. A lot of games these days make you think, and Skyward Sword does that. The difference here though is that you also have to act.
Skyward Sword is a weird game. It’s lazy and closed off; it won’t play itself. If you want to get anywhere, you have to pick up the controller and ENGAGE. It’s the concept that started video games, and it’s the only reason they ever existed. If you want anything in this game to respond, you have to poke it. Skyward Sword is a naive attempt to put the focus on the actions of the player, and it completely tears apart the passive nature of recent blockbuster games like Skyrim and Mass Effect. Zelda is an AWAKENING. Skyward Sword will have you feel like you’re actually CLIMBING things, and actually wielding a sword. It all comes together thanks to the MotionPlus controller, and it WORKS!
Deep within Ferrari: The Race Experience on Wii, lies a card game! Each player is given 33 cards (or 16 if you play half-deck), and on each card is a picture of a Ferrari with the stats of that particular car. The idea of the game is to trump the other player, by picking a feature of your car that represents it best and trumps that same feature on the other players card. The catch is you can’t see the other players card so you have to guess your strengths. Here’s an example; we start a game and I’ve got a 1958 Testarossa that’s rare as hell and costs $12,000,000. I go first because someone has to, and I’m lucky. I don’t know which car the other player holds, but I’m pretty sure it’s worth less than 12 million dollars, so I pick the money category…
THIS GAME IS SO GOOD. I’ve been playing it a lot and enjoying every second; but until now haven’t been able to pinpoint WHY it’s so good. Sure it’s got amazing graphics and a better draw distance than even Xenoblade Chronicles, but there’s something else that sets this game apart from all other open world games. It makes me feel LIKE A MAN. IT MAKES ME WANT TO YELL SHIT AND TYPE IN CAPS. It taps into my male primal urges to dominate the land. All I’m doing in Just Cause 2 is finding new areas and blowing stuff up until I get a big fat 100% “Settlement Complete” medal. What now? Next area. Find some packages, blow stuff up, “Settlement Complete”. Next area. The game is so MASSIVE that I can do this and nothing else. Your influence increases the more chaos you cause; the game REWARDS you for running into an area and beating your chest.
The Last Story is captivating. It tells the story of a group of honest mercenaries striving to be knights – not so they can dominate the world – but merely on the hope of a good night’s sleep without one eye open. The story that unfolds is wonderfully intriguing and engaging, and with fun gameplay and interactive environments; you’re not just watching or reading the story, you’re PLAYING it. It’s a fairy tale set in a living, breathing world that embraces the interactive nature of videogames. It’s such a different game in so many aspects and brings a lot of new things to the table in terms of how you approach things as a player. I could fill this entire paragraph with buzzwords and verbal wankery, and still fail to capture what the game is like. Everything has a magical, whimsical story-telling feel to it, like a long descriptive dream with talented British voice actors. It’s a love story because I’m in love with this game.
There isn’t much point doing a review for this – you either like Mario Party or you don’t. If you do, then you’re in for a real treat. I think this is the best one yet due to the quality of the mini-games, amazing graphics, and excellent presentation. Above all, I prefer the new board concept to the old one; it makes the progression of the game a lot more exciting. This makes my earlier impressions post a bit redundant, but that must be how Mario Party 8 feels right now. I’ve played a lot more since then, and unlocked everything in the game.
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