• Likes

  • Fluid control system
  • Guerilla mode is outstanding
  • Gunsmith will eat your gaming hours
  • Its Ghost Recon back with a bang!
  • Smooth online experience

• Dislikes

  • Installing game for best performance
  • Cover and shoot camera can get confused

Many were slightly worried about the new tech involved and whether it will destroy the game, namely the multiplayer, but after many, many hours of playing all of the elements MG are proud to say that Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier stands tall and is a big smack on the lips for any Ghost Recon fan.

The game itself has had a lot of press lately, especially with the introduction of Gunsmith and the online multiplayer beta, which we gave our initial impressions to here.  A lot has also been said about the active camo and whether or not this may unbalance the game but fear not kids, the active camo adds another juicy layer to an already feature rich game.

You see, the basic movement, techniques and gameplay hasn’t changed that much and everybody that was in awe of the mighty GRAW and GRAW 2 will instantly feel at home.  The campaign’s story sees 4 ghosts killed in the line of duty, setup as it were by underhand terrorists hell bent on putting the GHOSTS out of commission.  Cue a story rich in plot lines of chasing down weapons dealers, governments being overthrown and all the while your group of GHOSTS tracking down the people responsible and exacting revenge whilst putting some of the world to rights.  Although the storyline has a lot of feel, one thing that never changes is that for the most part, the game puts you back into what Ghost Recon titles do best – firefights, tactical combat and a good ol third person, cover shooter romp amongst a couple of other tricks.

A solid introduction and a couple of chapters from the thirteen extensive ones that you’re thrown into will soon have you up to speed with the movement of your character and all of the actions needed to succeed.  Active camo appears pretty fast into the story which gives you new decisions on how to progress through each area although some sections require that you do not alert anyone at all.  Utilising your drone you will be able to setup strategical hits on targets that you highlight with the help of your fellow ghosts.  Once the targets are acquired and have been locked on, it is a matter of holding down the RB button or shooting the fourth target yoursehotslf to set off the simultaneous shots to take down the guards.  Get this right and your progress is a lot easier, get it wrong and a body is spotted or you don’t take them out in one hit and all hell breaks loose.  What becomes a game of strategy soon becomes what you know happens in Ghost Recons of old, a full on firefight.

Helping you out though is a plethora of weapons and equipment that can be selected through the awesome gunsmith, which is also available on the app stores for your mobile phones for creating your weapon set on the fly.  Sensor grenades will pick up signals with the specific area that the grenade is thrown into whilst standard frags, EMP grenades and the like can be selected by scrolling through using the dpad and pressing the LB to deploy and night vision etc can be used with a press up or down with the dpad too.

The array of weaponry on offer and also available to unlock as well as the different attachments, paints etc is quite frankly huge.  You could literally spend hours in gunsmith crafting your perfect weapon for battle and adds to an already impressive selection of things to do within the game.

The campaign will give you hours of challenges in three varying difficulties but if you think that you are restricted to a quick run through the storyline in search of the multiplayer campaigns then think again – perhaps ….. Each chapter also has a set of challenges that come with it and dependent on how competitive you are, this may be the sway you need to march on though it again to get each of these challenges.  Friends daily challenges as well as your own personal ones are all on offer and are rewarded for completion.

Although the campaign is fun on your own, Ghost Recon’s ability to draw three of your friends in the mix to go through the story with you online or off plays to what Ghost Recon has always managed to do and that is to bring everyone together under one big happy roof.  If you tire of the campaign for a while then Guerilla mode may take your fancy.  Gears Of War 2 may have breathed new life into holding off and hunting down enemies but GRAW 2 was doing the same sort of thing 2 years before with Coop elimination and although it was more loose than Gears, the cogs were definitely turning and the new evolution of Horde style gameplay fits Guerilla mode perfectly into Ghost Recon: Future Soldier’s arsenal.

Based on four initial maps, with one that can be purchased via the interwoven Uplay server, teams of up to 4 players have to reach certain areas and achieve certain objectives whilst fending off wave after wave  of enemies, 50 in fact.  Sound familiar?  Well, it kind of plays out like most Horde type games but the areas and equipment you can use make it a hell of a ride. Combos and points are on offer for kills, offering help, tagging up enemies etc which will unlock bonuses and weapons to be used in game.  A tonne of fun?  Hell yeah and something that will be a go to area of the game when you need a break from muiltiplayer.

We have mainly covered the multiplayer before in our beta impressions here but Ubisoft have upped their game a little to produce 8 on 8 action split onto two fireteams on each team.  Various objective based games are played for points on a variety of maps, with XP being awarded to each character class you play that levels up at certain levels and unlocks points to trade in to but attachments with.

I could go on and on about multiplayer and how good it is, even if it takes a while to get your bearings (yes, we are old, we can’t play like we used to an we hate a little change – meh!) but inevitably the multiplayer will all hinge on how stable the servers are and what sort of lag, if any, you will get.  There are a number of changes to the way the online is played but after getting used to the inner workings and how it all pieces together, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier’s maps, versatility and custom gameplay are as balanced and as fun as ever.

Although the game sounds perfect there are a couple of niggles that need to be addressed.  First of all, he game really does need to be installed to the hard drive.  Although there is a small install of data I did find that the game’s outstanding graphical achievements were held back by the console’s age in terms of reading data from the disc.  Audio lag and cut out, excessive load times as well as texture pop up lag were rife but as soon as I installed to disc, almost everything ran fine with the exception of the odd pop up now and then.  The cover system is also a great feature of the game but in some instances the camera would get a little confused as to where I should be aiming when popping out of cover to fire.  Small niggles indeed for such a massive game but one that can be fixed via installing the game and one that occurs every now and again but isn’t a game breaker in any way, shape or form.

Overall, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier excels in every direction bringing Tom Clancy’s realised world of future Spec Ops into a gaming environment that will delight hardcore Ghost Recon fans as well as show FPS’s like COD how intense plot lines, stealth and strategy can come together in perfect harmony as well as offering up a master class in how to bring four friends together and engage in battle.

The volume of content on offer, depth of game design, introducing new features into Ghost Recon as well as solidifying the mechanics that make this franchise great puts Ghost Recon: Future Soldier firmly on the must buy list and I will bet anyone now that this title ends up number one in the charts on Monday.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is available in the U.K. on Friday.  You can pre order a copy from our preferred partner www.thatgameshop.com

Related posts:

1. Ghost Recon: Future Soldier announced
2. Ubisoft release Ghost Recon: Future Soldier single player trailer
3. Ghost Recon Future Soldier dated

In this review, Alaric plays with dirt, demonstrates the proper way to slaughter pigs, and generally loses himself in the excellent world of Minecraft for the Xbox Live Arcade. Strong language.

All captured in-game content (c)2012 Mojang, music by Daniel Rosenfeld.

For those of you that like it old school, then here is the written word:-

Finally! After so many lesser copycats have rendered the Xbox Indy Games Section all but completely infertile for the seeds of creative development, Mojang has at last presented console gamers with the real McCoy. It kicks each and every one of those wannabe Minecraft Indy titles in the bollocks with an easy swing and without mercy, and walks off smiling.

If you’re a complete newbie to the Minecraft phenomenon, welcome back to civilisation, was it cold in the Antarctic or wherever the fuck you’ve been? No matter.

The keyword here is ‘simplicity’. Minecraft starts you off with nothing and from this you are expected and indeed able to achieve everything.

It’s an entire randomly-generated world which is comprised solely of these little cubes of matter. Each cube has its own properties, like any material. Dirt is used to grow stuff on, stone and wood can be used as building materials, coal is fuel, ores can be refined; there’s a hell of a lot of stuff out there in your little world of cubes, most of it’s buried beneath your feet and that’s where the mining comes into it.

But before you even get to that part, your first challenge on easy difficulty upwards is to survive after the sun goes down, because that’s when monsters come out to play with your intestines. One word: creepers.

You’ll be pleased to hear that the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft comes with its own tutorial and prompts for you to understand at any given moment what you’re looking at, which is good, because most 360 gamers won’t have the patience to look up every single detail on the Minecraft Wiki like I have in the past.

After you’ve got a house, a bed, some basic tools, it’s time to start gathering resources. Dig twenty leagues underground, go monster hunting, whatever you choose the world is entirely yours to explore and there’s no goal to aspire to besides what you set for yourself.

The genius of Minecraft comes from the way in which it silently encourages you to use your brain and tame its multitude of blocky substances, and what’s more it makes you proud of your accomplishments for no apparent reason.

Once that creative hook bites into you – and bite into you it will – the compulsion to keep going and finish every small task you set yourself rolls onward. Minecraft becomes your world.

If you’re after a challenge, it can provide you with one. It’s not easy to survive the honeycomb of caverns that lie beneath the surface with monsters jumping out at you and eating your face. What’s more is that it’s an experience more isolating and fear-inducing than most you can find on next-generation survival horror titles – and this is a 16-Bit resolution game! Zombies moan at you from behind rock walls like unwary sex offenders, creepers hiss when you’ve caught them trying to sneak up behind you, and skeletons clatter about in Minecraft’s cavernous depths.

It’s an atmosphere based on having a realm of possibilities and no certainties, terrific work that most developers can only dream of achieving.

More often than not people just enjoy playing together and building something on ‘peaceful’ mode without the monsters. Even the most ardent hardcore shooter fan will want to have a go, and they’ll forget what time it is as they’re traipsing around looking for cake ingredients.

The controller feels a little clunky at first to anyone used to the mouse and keyboard, but this quickly passes, though PC users still get the better deal by having a near-limitless supply of game ‘mods’ and texture packs to use and create. By porting Minecraft to the Xbox360 Mojang has curtailed the deeper creative abilities of their fans, but most of us won’t care.

There is next to nothing between playing this game online with several friends or playing it alone; it runs with a steady frame rate and looks fabulous on the Xbox. A special mention is deserved for music man Daniel Rosenfeld otherwise known as “C418”: your soundtrack for this game is fucking genius.

I can’t recommend Minecraft enough, chiefly because I like to build shit and slaughter pigs. It’s the ultimate relaxation game, a title that offers no glory but a great deal of self-satisfaction. Buy it, allow the atmosphere to soak in, and see it for your self.

Related posts:

1. Joe Danger Special Edition – Review (XBLA)
2. The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings – Enhanced Edition – Review (360)
3. Swarm – Review (XBLA, PSN)

• Likes

  • Best Killcam Ever
  • Very solid mechanics
  • Co-op campaign and modes
  • Great variety of levels

• Dislikes

  • Some enemies spawn late

The story is based around the end of the second world war where the allies are closing their grip on the Reich and squeezing them to surrender.  The technology that was involved in this war, especially the v2 rocket and the scientists involved in creating them, serve as a hot commodity for the Americans on the western front and also the Russians on the eastern front and deals were being put in place on both sides to acquire these scientists to develop future weapons and technology for future wars.  The Americans loss is the Russians gain and you are a lonely sniper looking to neutralise any potential deals that are being made between these scientists and Russia.

To get to the best vantage point, Sniper Elite allows you the choice to go heavy handed and have fire fights with the enemy, or traverse your way silently through the ruins of various locations through Europe that are as varied as the weapons at your disposal.  Setting up land mines and utilising trip wires to protect you angles all play into this stealthy sniping sim.  The choices are open to your interpretation and what you feel is the best form of attack.  Throwing a rock to move some guards out of position or popping them through the head with a silenced pistol also play into strategies that can help in your survival or give you enough breathing room to find the next piece of cover.

The build up to the hit is just as exhilarating as the hit itself and forward planning and thinking, utilising the weapons you have, as well as identifying potential cover all play a massive part in immersing the player right into the heart of the level, so much so I even began to move slowly in real time when I needed that little piece of quiet to get past a guard or two, such was the tension.

This was the main meal but the gravy was seeing your main target and getting your position right, adjusting the cross hair to take into account wind and distance etc, controlling your breathing and pulling the trigger.  Get it right as in a kill shot and Sniper Elite v2′s bullet time takes centre stage, showing the bullet’s trajectory into your enemy in great detail, all helped by an x-ray of your enemy’s body and the damage that the bullet does on impact.  Gory? Yes. Effective? Hell yeah!  I can’t think of another game where the emphasis on one kill and its effects has me fist pumping in joy and not caring who has just seen my victory dance.  Sniper Elite v2 does that to you.  The build up can be painstaking, not helped by enemies that spawn, even after you have seen that a building is clear, but the rewards are outstanding  and the payoff gives you a very, very satisfied feeling.  The levels themselves, as well as the scenario designs, offer versatility and are so varied that there was never a chance of being bored and each one had its own little characteristics that made it stand out.

As deep and fulfilling the campaign is the ability to play through the whole thing with a buddy in a co-operative scenario put a whole new spin on things and is something that is applauded by myself.  Not everyone likes the run and gun of FPS models and the ability to sit down and play with a friend through the game makes for a very relaxed experience.  The teamwork and communication involved in getting through each level together add a crtain element that is somewhat missing at times in other game.

A handful of other 2-player online co-op modes are available. You can work together to rack up kills in the wave-based tally mode, but this barebones effort (inspired by Gears of War’s Horde mode) is boring compared to the other options. Overwatch tasks one player with ground-based missions like destroying AA guns or collecting enemy intel while an ally plays guardian angel with a sniper rifle from the high ground. In the challenging bombing run mode players must scavenge tank parts around the map in order to repair their ride home, which requires attentive teamwork and constant alertness. This mode would be flawless if not for the handful of enemies automatically spawned when you begin collecting parts. Like the magically appearing snipers mentioned earlier, forced encounters like this contradict the game’s core concept – be wholly aware of the battlefield.

I have mentioned a few grumbles about the game, which can be fixed with a patch or two, but the overall enjoyment of the game shadows the, shall we say, minor gripes that appear every now and again.

Overall, Sniper Elite v2 is everything to everyone and does exactly what it says on the tin.  From level design to game design and how the title challenges you in so many different ways offers up great value for money and endless replay value and with a very solid co-operative feature set supporting the main campaign you have a game that will keep you busy for a long, long time.  Add to that the ability to change your difficulty from shoot where you look mechanics to going the whole hog, taking into account wind adjustments as well as bullet trajectory and you have an experience that will take your breath away.

The advertising for this game has gone a long way to show off the bullet cam technology and what destruction a bullet can cause but Sniper Elite v2 is not a one trick pony. Once you realise how solid the build up to your kill is, then the kill itself just becomes the icing on the cake, indulging you in its richness on each and every level.

You can buy Sniper Elite v2 from our preferred retail partner at www.thatgameshop.com

Related posts:

1. Sniper Elite v2 out now
2. Sniper Elite V2′s pre order incentive gets you to assassinate Hitler
3. Sniper Elite v2 video round up

• Things you’ll buy it for

  • Freedom + God like power = fun
  • So much cheesy dialogue it’s hilarious
  • You can throw a tank at a helicopter

• Things you’ll sell it for

  • Next to no replay value
  • No real depth
  • Makes GTA look like The Wire

You almost certainly haven’t seen a burly man who’s angry about something AND got a blade the size of a revolutionary Frenchman’s wet dream for his right arm. There was a graceless charm in the way the first Prototype game presented itself that many of us found appealing over the course of an idle weekend, and its first sequel hasn’t lost that appeal but played and expanded upon it.

For the uninitiated, a quick introduction: the basic idea developer Radical Entertainment came up with was to enable you, the humble gamer, to fuck up absolutely everything you possibly could as long as it wasn’t a piece of environment. They gave leading protagonist Alex Mercer, a classically trained amnesiac, a story arc in the first Prototype that involved a genetics-altering virus and a lot of heartless government troops, sandwiching a juicy NPC populace in-between.

This time around we have army sergeant James Heller, who handles in much the same way as Mercer did, but this time with more finesse and – if it’s possible to use this word in context for a game like this – balance.

What you’ll experience in Prototype 2 is freedom. The freedom to run and jump and explore; to indulge your inner child and laugh gleefully as the gore and body parts trace spirograph-like patterns in the air; to drive over fleeing civilians in a tank with a song in your heart and not a care in the world.

From the start of this seven- to eight-hour long excursion to a New York City playground, Heller functions as Ezio Auditore would if the randy Renaissance noble had snorted several hundred lines of stuff you should never try – and somehow survived. Watching an athletic individual climb a building one ponderous move at a time might be entertaining to some, but Radical hasn’t bothered with that flashy bullshit. Instead they give you the power to simply charge up, across, and indeed over any landscape you happen to find underfoot; tearing over glass, stonework, and concrete like a sprinter on Olympic-standard tarmac with one hell of a set of Nike’s.

Having provided you with three districts of NYC to zoom across, each splattered with some collectibles and extra missions, you’re left to get on with it and build up your abilities to the point where you’re leaping over skyscrapers, disembowelling your foes with one punch, and playing havoc with the occupying military forces. And it’s all great fun from start to finish, thanks to the way in which Radical have set the pace for missions and challenges.

You have all the speeds here, from ‘slow and thoughtful’ to ‘mash buttons like your genitals are on fire’, and it’s spread out so smoothly between sections that you hardly notice the transition, even though the situational context will make no sense at all.

Prototype 2’s success is due chiefly to its easiness, the only pertinent challenge on high difficulties being how much health the enemies have and how much damage they can do to Heller. There are stealth sections where you have to take the likenesses of VIPs unnoticed by ‘consuming’ them, race courses to beat under a time limit, groups of enemies to dispose of, objectives to guard, vehicles to surreptitiously hijack…There’s even a few sections where you take on the role of a soldier and have to rely on your gun or brawling skills alone.

That being said, if you’re looking for story it’s best to forget Prototype 2 and go elsewhere.

This isn’t Liberty City or the back roads of the Wild West, there’s no rhyme or reason linked to what you’ll see on your screen, you just go with it because it’s hilarious to throw a scientist into a crowd of zombies and watch his guts explode. Sure, there’s supposed to be something in the narrative to make you give a damn – either Heller’s annoyed at Alex Mercer because this virus is eating everything, or he’s just annoyed at all the soldiers because they shoot people indiscriminately – but it fails to make any kind of impact or draw out your sympathy for Heller as a character, or anyone else for that matter.

The thing all good sandbox genre games do is make you feel like the world you’re looking at really ‘works’, like the NPCs are actually people going about their lives, but in the world of Prototype 2 they’re just walking about aimlessly in the danger zones like they want to get their skin turned into a chew toy by all the wildlife. The fact that they insult you everywhere you go won’t endear you to them, so it’s a mystery why Heller seems to care so much about humanity when he’s only too glad to rip them apart if it gives him a health boost.
The memory cutscenes you get from consuming certain individuals are there basically to test how epileptic you are and remind you that the occupying soldiers are all bastards, though a few scenes are mildly amusing. There’s a nice amount of banter going on with the military forces that’s so overblown it’s sometimes hilarious. And that’s what should be celebrated about Prototype 2 – the fact that it isn’t trying to be clever or insightful, just good fun.

There are moments when it fails and most of these shortcomings will be in the narrative, but more often than not you’ll be laughing at how absurd it all is and how angry Heller gets for no apparent reason, to the extent where you might think it was intentional.

Crap story or no, Prototype 2 delivers on several hours of good solid entertainment and, should you be the type of gamer who’s a bit sick of developers trying to make you care about their characters, it’s the perfect cure. Just don’t expect it to carry a lot of replay value.

Related posts:

1. Activision announce Prototype 2
2. Prototype supersoldiers character revealed
3. Prototype 2 becomes Activision’s first Online Pass title

Yes folks I refer of course to Battleship by Activision, Hasbro and Double Helix Games (Xbox/ps3), Magic Pockets (Wii/3DS/DS) a first person shooter (FPS) with a bit of a twist.

I personally haven`t seen the film Battleship, so I can`t compare this game with it, mind you it is really a basic FPS with a very vague reference to the board game,(apparently there are copyright issues with the makers of the board game) according to the press release it is actually the same story as the movie, but not tied into the movie storyline, so you won`t be able to meet Rihanna and talk about umbrellas.

Battleship itself is a straight forward FPS (First Person Shooter) with the added option of controlling your fleet of battleships, and submarines (just like in the original game)

You’re a bad/mean marine type on a training exercise in the Hawaiian Islands, when the aliens invade, and of course these guys aren`t like ET, oh no folks, this lot are out to kick some human bottoms, and it’s your job to stop them.

If Activision is involved in this then we know that they have a long pedigree in creating some excellent FPS games, this unfortunately is not the greatest, but it isn’t all bad.

You play the character Cole Mathis an explosives expert and your mission is to infiltrate and destroy the enemy radar, and whatever else comes along, whilst fighting the aliens on the ground, and (this is a reference to the board game) control your ships via a tactical control pad, that allows you to move your fleet around, attacking the enemy, or back up your ground troops, this feature is the more interesting part of the game, mainly because you get to equip your ships (if you collect the wildcards from dead enemies) with better armour and weapons, you even have 20 seconds of ship control where you get to bomb the enemy into oblivion, with the added bonus of being able to see your organised sea battles in real time from the ground.

The FPS gameplay isn`t too bad actually, on a par with the likes of Syndicate, and I did enjoy storming the enemy and engaging in pitched battles, whilst trying to organise my fleet and stop them from being wiped out.

This is what I do like about Battleship is it`s not just an FPS it also involves strategy, and a certain level of planning, as you approach each level, the aliens themselves aren`t that easy to kill and require a few shots to take them out (unless your close up and personal with a shotgun or an alien rail gun).

The bad guys are backed up by some nasty equipment like Shredders, which are rolling mines that creep up on you and explode; the best thing to do is run for it! There is an array of different types of alien, which are generally a lot harder to dispatch, which makes for a challenging experience.

The one thing I can positively say about Battleship is it isn’t boring, because you just don`t have time to be, you’re constantly being bombarded with instructions from HQ, and you have to keep checking your fleet, and helping out your squad on the ground.

Weapons are OK, you have the standard army issue semi-automatic rifle and there are plenty of ammo and you can pick up and use a variety of different alien weapons (not as many as I would have liked) the shotgun is the best up close and personal piece of kit, with the alien rail gun coming in a close second for those “lawnmower” moments, and you have the added luxury of naval back up, including bombardments and missile strikes that can be accessed from your D-pad.

There are 7 missions to complete and this takes around 6 hours, with different difficulty settings it can take longer if you like a real challenge , unfortunately there is no on line multiplayer with this game, which is unusual these days, instead the developers have opted for a more full on campaign instead.

Overall, Battleship is a fun, action packed rollercoaster of a game that doesn’t last long enough and with no multiplayer has no real replay value.  There are a lot of fun elements to the game and the concept is solid but it just doesn’t last long enough and is not helped  by the lack of balance between the two features that it is trying to marry.  It’s still worth checking out on rental or a cheap pick up as the battleship element is a unique idea, and with the FPS action makes for an entertaining 6 hours or so.

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3. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3: Review (360, PS3)

It’s pretty hard to do something based around Albion that hasn’t already been done as Fable, for the most part, includes God like features that span every genre.

In Fable Heroes though, Lionhead Studios have opted to to bring some multiplayer fun into the mix by marrying hack and slash ethics into some healthy grab what you can competition and the idea is so simple that gameplay prevails as the driving factor behind what makes this title a success.

The premise is simple.  You control one of many puppet characters based on the characters of Albion to hack and slash your way through various locations within Lionhead’s imagined world whilst collecting as much gold as you can along the way.  At the end of the level you will see two paths in which you will play either a mini game or fight a boss to finish and collect as much loot as you can too.  The rub?  Well, you have another 3 players in the form of A.I. or friends along for the ride doing exactly the same thing and jostling for position on top of the podium becomes the fun factor in all of this.  A little healthy competition didn’t hurt anyone and Fable Heroes serves up that formula perfectly as you strategise of whether it is worth waiting for coins to drop from other players doing damage or if you would be better served getting stuck into the heart of the fight.

Different classes of puppets are also present so deciding whether you want to go with a ranged character or something that is well versed in the close attack are also needed to be thought about.  You can also poer up your puppets at the end of each level by playing a mini board game. Roll a dice, land on the required space and decide whether you want to buy the upgrade by spending all of those coins that you have collected also adds a little twist to proceedings.  Once everything has been collected on the outside path an inner path becomes unlocked which wields more bountiful goodies.  The problem is though that once you have taken the time to land on all of the outside spaces your money has built up to such a point that it makes purchasing anything you want easy.  Its a great idea but one that is slightly flawed and needs a rethink.

Now, you may think the game has no depth as there is only so many times that you can fight Hobbes and the like in a standard way but fear not.  Lionhead have introduced a few of the gems from the Fable series and introduced them into here.  The moral choices for example that go hand in hand with your hero are represented here with good and evil chests placed in certain parts of a level that have positive or negative effects.  Choose the good chest and a positive effect will happen to either you or one of the players.  This could be a  cloud that rains coin drops onto them or choosing evil may create a cloud that zaps them with lightning, dropping coins everywhere.  Effects can also be transferred from player to player so watching  what is happening is very important as you may see your character start to leak coins.

Other chests are placed around each level that also contain various effects but stuff that is not as dramatic as the good or evil ones.  Examples of which are growing or shrinking, receiving cash or a bonus multiplayer and offer up a way of breaking the monotony that may present itself after and elongated gaming session.

The big sticking point for me was how hollow the experience felt when playing on your own.  Having 3 A.I. puppets running around with you served no enjoyment at all and seemed to move away from the unique selling point of the title.  However, when you team up with some of your buddies to go marauding through the landscapes of Albion, the game feels alive and you soon forget the little bugs that annoy you and the added gloss of local 4 player competition sets itself up for a game that can be played through the night, enjoyed with a couple of beers and have a few belly laughs with some of your mates at home.

Overall, Fable Heroes is worth the 800n Microsoft point asking price and although there are a few bugs here and there, a few gripes about playing on your own,  the competitive nature and simplicity of the gameplay will give you hours of fun among friends online or off. Being able to transfer all of your coin into Fable: The Journey when it eventually releases has to also add a little weight.

Related posts:

1. Fable III – review (360)
2. Bloodforge – Review (XBLA)
3. Natal support confirmed for Fable III

• Likes

  • Rage Kills are inventive
  • Challenge Mode
  • Avatar Awards

• Dislikes

  • Dull Storyline
  • Poor camera angles
  • Sparse med drops

It follows the story of Crom a hardy hunter with a gears of war bulk, fur boots and a deer’s skull as a hat. You start the game on a serene Skyrim esque hunting scene where Crom has just killed a deer and thrown it over his shoulder to carry home when he decides on a nap.

This nap is a prophecy of evil and he awakes to find his homestead is completely ablaze. Crom heads home to find enemy’s spawning from the ground all over his yard,Once you have mullered them into fillets a butcher would be proud to hang in his window you run inside to find another enemy but wait oh no the gods have duped you into killing your own wife!!

Now what would any hardy hunter with a seven foot sword and a fur war suit do? That’s right, you go to hunt down the gods and seek revenge!!

The story then disappointingly takes a nose dive and gets very dull very quick. The cut scenes are so slow and the voice acting has you cringing and turning down your headset as the tones are just so far off from each other, Crom’s voice is that of a Dark warrior but your enemies always seem to be screeching at you rather than talking.  The cut scenes also lack integration to the game play as they CANNOT be skipped for a quick play through which can lead to a lot of frustration and if you should want to punish yourself and play again offers you up a painful reminder that cannot be overlooked.

The game play also lacks weight to your player’s movements and seems to float around at the slightest touch of your sticks. The cell shading of the grey murky lands and bright red of the blood letting look cool at first but are headache inducing as you get deeper into the game.

During the game you unlock a choice of three weapons you can switch to at any time which is your default sword a stone war hammer and 2 doubled bladed bone claws, none of which seem to be any more powerful than the other just that each has its own flashy moves that are unlocked. The fighting mechanic itself is good whereby you use a mix of light and heavy attacks strung together to make your special moves. This would be brilliant but Crom has no ability to block so you are constantly having to roll and dodge to stay alive and factor into the equation the lack of lock on targeting and dodgy camera movement, you end up spending most of your fights smashing your controller blindly hoping you will get the blows onto your target.

The camera also has a horrible tendency to move around during fights and completely impede your vision or spin Crom around so that he is no longer facing his enemy.  This coupled with the enormous amount of map glitches that pin you into invisible corners just makes the fights ridiculously hard and unrewarding.

As you move through the maps of unpleasant wasteland and wilderness you come across all manner of ungodly and unnatural enemies which get harder and harder to kill but with each bloody massacre every drop of blood is collected by Croms Gauntlet, which then in turn allows you to activate rage mode where each hit has 4x the power and acts as a knock back to keep the enemies at bay. The rage attacks also have an awesome twist where you do a take down execution by ramming your blade into the gut of your enemy and then disemboweling them all in slow motion.

That’s not all though as the blood collected can be used as a currency to buy some brilliant and powerful rune attacks such as calling the serpent demons to take chunks out of any enemy that dares to enter a certain radius of you for a short period of time.

Sadly as powerful as these attacks are they lack the edge, for this to be a fun game.  Each enemy you come across gets harder to beat or simply the game just throws too many at you at one time.  Croms is also a not too healthy fighter and his health can be completely diminished by two single blows from most bosses with med packs being very few and far between to help you along.

The game gets so frustrating as you use all your rage and power attacks to defeat a boss with another just spawning around the next corner.  The sparse save points mean you often end up going back five minutes into the story over and over again. Now I like an arcade esque fighter/hack and slash game but this must seriously be one of the hardest games ever made to actually make it through a play through fully. With the lack of med-packs, the problematic camera angles, clunky fighting options and huge super strength enemies it feels as though you will never beat it.

The game does have two other modes to whetten your appetite though. First is Blood Duel where as you progress through each stage of the story mode it will compare how well you played against anyone that is on your friends list and then giving you a place on a mini leaderboard. The second is Challenge mode which works as a kind of horde mode with wave after wave of enemy where youre challenge is to last longer than anyone on your friends list again. This does have the cool feature that you get to bring any unlocks and powerups from the main story with you aswell as buying new during the challenge.

Overall, the game lacks originality in a plot or storyline and the poor camera angles and buggy gameplay makes for a frustrating experience. The plus side is that the basic mechanics of the game are sound and with the right patch from the developers could be a brilliant game.  400 Gamerscore and a whole outfit avatar award just adds strings to the bow but as the game stands as of today I wouldn’t recommend the purchase at 1200 Microsoft Points.

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2. Swarm – Review (XBLA, PSN)
3. Mercury Mg – Review (XBLA, PSN)

• Likes

  • adaptable to fit your hand
  • Extra buttons by thumb are excellent
  • Outstanding programmable macro limit
  • Lights change colour for different modes

• Dislikes

  • High RRP
  • Not many plug ins available

First off, Cyborg along with Saitek, Eclipse, TRITTON are all brands aimed at different parts of the interactive market under the big dog Mad Catz. One of the leading global providers of innovative products for a wide audience in the industry it is exciting to get hold of one of their products and see how it performs and holds up against the screams and short temper of a normally relaxed gamer.

The product comes well packaged and in a very stylish box along with an opening door on the front so you can drool over the product in the knowledge that you won’t damage it as its still safe and secure in the box looking all innocent and snug before it goes with you to break the moral of your foes. Inside the box you’ll, of course, find the MMO 7 itself and the instruction booklets as always, but also if you lift up the piece of card you’ll find a nice little box under it which contains extra parts.

The MMO 7 feels solid as a product and has some weight to it but this can be adjusted by unscrewing the bolt by the palm of your hand to make it lighter if you like having a weightless mouse. With thirteen programmable buttons which allow up to seventy eight user defined commands it makes your keyboard near enough obsolete for hotkey usage in near enough any game you use it in, meaning your other hand is free to focus on movement without having to stretch fingers away to hit an impractical hotkey. The palm rest is also fully adjustable meaning you can set it up to fit the size of your hand and not have any discomfort, unless you have extreme size hands that may warrant looking in to . . .( no offence to people will really big hands, I’m secretly jealous of you).

Setting up and installing the MMO 7 is pretty straight forward. Connect the mouse into the desired USB port, download the drivers and software from www.cyborggaming.com/download.htm select the product you have and click download and then install. In terms of configuring all the buttons (as this is my first time using a gaming mouse) it did take a little time to realise how it all programmed and how you assign the hotkeys to the different buttons on the mouse etc, but it all became clear fairly quickly. With a little trial and error in World of Warcraft I was more then happy with how I had set it up. Just to touch up on how the software is for configuring the MMO 7, it is clear and worded very well with the instructions on how to set the dpi, the colour you want the mouse buttons to glow in each of the three different modes, when assigning the hotkeys to the mouse and a diagram of the mouse which flips about depending on which buttons you are configuring.

My Guild in World of Warcraft were nice enough to do the first tier of raiding (as I no longer play wow often enough to warrant being a full time raider) to test out how much of a difference it made to how you can game in an MMO. I was absolutely delighted with the results of how much easier it made raiding as I no longer had to move my hand away from the wasd movement keys to hold shift and tap a nearby number key.

I also had a quick opportunity to test this mouse out in the Diablo 3 beta ( I know, not an MMO) to see if it was any help with that and although you could only play up to level 13 in the beta which gave you a total of two skills which are on numbered keys it wasn’t much of a test. But I persisted to see if it was worth setting up the key bindings to the mouse, and although I prefer using the keyboard as well as that is what PC gaming is all about, you can’t knock the much need free hand to grab a drink or a handful of crisp as your energy begins to drop in a crucial moment of game play.

Overall I am very impressed with the quality of the MMO 7 in terms of how it looks and feels, how it performs in the few games I’ve been able to test it in and the arrange of colours you can have it glowing so you never get bored of seeing the same bright colours day in, day out.

The MMO 7 retails at roughly £99.99 and is a great gaming mouse which shouldn’t be shunned just because of its price tag. If you like total control when playing your mmo’s then this mouse comes highly recommend as I had a blast testing it in World of Warcraft, although later found out you can get a special plug-in to use along side it (so that will teach me to read properly) which I can imagine make using the MMO 7 even more satisfying to use.

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2. Mad Catz MLG Pro Controller – Review
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• Likes

  • Perfect gaming experience
  • Fun, Fun, Fun Multiplayer
  • Deep and Rich Editor

• Dislikes

  • Perfect in every way

With the release of the delayed follow up, Trials Evolution, now in the bag it seems as though RedLynx, a studio now owned by Ubisoft, has not only reconfirmed what we already knew but has added to the original in such a way that it has put itself way out there as one of the iconic games of this generation of consoles.

In case you’ve had your head in the sand, Trials Evolution is simple in its gameplay but becomes a test of skill, patience and nerve to master in the latter stages.   the player controls a rider on a physics-based motorcycle from the start of the level to the end while navigating a number of obstacles, a little like ol Dougie Lampkin used to do in that beautiful TV creation back in the 80′s called Kickstart. The objective is to complete the course as fast as possible and with as few crashes, known in the game as faults, as possible. The game uses 3D graphics, but is played on a 2D plane, so the rider can only move forwards and backwards. Players can also control the bike’s pitch at slow speeds or while in the air.

The control system and the way the bike feels is so smooth that piecing together a well timed run feels like a real achievement and gives you a real satisfaction that you rarely feel in gaming.  Each set of tracks come with its own difficulty attached and only after you have won enough medals by completing a certain track in a time limit or under so many crashes (faults) will unlock firstly the tutorial level that enables you to understand some of the moves that will get you through the next set of levels and also the tracks themselves, each designed beautifully and each with their own characteristics to make them stand out.

The progression in difficulty is also rewarding for the person that is willing to take the time to master each course with the beginner’s courses offering free flowing hills and climbs that if timed right can produce some outstanding timed runs to the more difficult courses where throttle control, balance and posture are king.  Get a rhythm going and feel on top of the world but get something wrong and getting your flow back ends up with  little frustration.  If beating yourself wasn’t enough though you also have a live leaderboard for each track to contend with that shows your friends progression as you are trying to complete the course yourself.  If you ever wanted to have a feature that drives addiction in a videogame then this is it.

So the single player is as glorious as its ever been with quite a few refinements like a 3D esque course look to enhance the visual characteristics as well as refine course design and there are so many more obstacles put in your way for you to traverse but to write about this I would only be tipping the iceberg of how good and packed full of features this game is.  Making a return are also Tournament modes which combines various tracks together to combine the times together as one overall score and also the skill games which offers a variety of silly mini games that make a break from the stresses and strains of overcoming the finer points of the hard and extreme tracks.

The big feature here though has to be the multiplayer mode that is as varying as you need and provides ridiculous amounts of fun both online and in local modes.  The beauty about multiplayer is that you can choose up to seven tracks, which are all opened to you, of varying difficulties and race each one up to three times to build a tally of points.  The principle is simple and a hell of a lot of fun and just goes to show how simplicity can sometimes push games beyond their limitations just by being accessible and creative.  The multiplayer has already provided for me some great times, close competition, a lot of laughs, some wtf moments and brought back what gaming is essentially about.  FUN!

When all is said and done, Trials stands on its own two feet purely on this alone but one thing puts this game into the stratosphere and that is the track editor.  Yup, you saw it on the original but the feature set in this version of the editor allows you to not only create a wealth of new tracks as well as download other peoples but also gives you the ability to create mini games too.  A version of Marble Madness is already featured in the skill games menu and is a firm favourite with me but gamers have already created Angry Birds clones and FPS’s to really show off their creative flair.

Overall, Trials Evolution not only shows that a simple physics based concept can become a seriously addictive offering but the amount of features packed into this game and priced at 1200 Microsoft points or a tenner if you want to be realistic should make other Publishers sit up and take note at the value for money that’s on offer here.  Trials Evolution not only a massive improvement on the original but improves on perfection in such a way that it cannot just be classed as a Game Of The Year contender but cements itself as one of the iconic games of this generation’s consoles.

Related posts:

1. New Trials Evolution gameplay trailer released
2. Trials Evolution confirmed for April
3. New Trials Evolution gameplay trailer shows more than just bikes

Now CD Projekt RED has ported this stunning game over to the 360 as an enhanced edition, including over 4 hours of extra storylines, features and cinematics to make this the most complete edition yet.  Has “dumbing down” the game to the 360 had an effect on the quality of the title overall?  Hell no, CD Projekt RED have just escalated their credibility into the stratosphere with a conversion that doesn’t detract from the original and is as breathtaking an experience as the PC version.

Following up from the original Witcher title and based on the book by Polish author, Andrzej Sapkowski, you again take control of anti-hero and one of the few remaining Witchers left, Geralt Of Rivia, a human in essence but have been enhanced and something that leaves an air of distrust in a lot of humans minds.

During the prologue, Geralt is interrogated in a prison in the kingdom of Temeria by Vernon Roche, the commander of a group of Temerian special forces known as the Blue Stripes, regarding the assassination of the king of Temeria, King Foltest. Geralt recounts the events leading up to Foltest’s death, during which he acted as Foltest’s bodyguard. During an uprising against Foltest by noble families of Temeria, Foltest personally leads the battle in order to recover his illegitimate children, Anais and Boussy, who are being held by the rebels. Once Foltest finds his children, he is killed by an assassin disguised as a blind monk, who escapes before Geralt can react. Geralt is then found by Temerian forces and mistaken for Foltest’s killer. After hearing Geralt’s confessions, Roche decides on Geralt’s innocence and aids him in escaping the prison. The two, along with Triss Merigold, a sorceress, Geralt’s companion and, up until Foltest’s assassination, royal advisor, then travel to a trading post named Flotsam, in search of the kingslayer.

The Kingslayer is first introduced in a stunning piece of film at the beginning of the game, technically adept in its performance and a real statement at letting any purchaser of The Witcher 2 on the 360 that CD Projekt RED have not only created an exceptional port but have also been as true to the graphical brilliance of the PC version as the 360′s capabilities allowed it.

Although The Witcher 2 submits itself to many of the standard conventions in the RPG genre, a lot of attention has been paid to every detail of these to deliver a narrative that is deep, engrossing, comedic, heart warming, terryfying and just downright stunning.  Your traditional main story takes centre stage with various mini quests that will eat up your time but what really stands out is how this world has been crafted and how The Witcher 2 breaks most traditional RPG theories, especially those based around the Tolkein novels.  Worlds in other fantasy stories normally fluffily edge themselves around the true political stances of the worlds that are created but The Witcher 2 challenges you to face up to the reality of what this world is about by throwing you head first into the adult, mature and dark streets and surroundings of various cities, trapsing between the slums of the non humans and the better living conditions of the humans.

Political alliances, rascism and a very adult theme at times, along with the language to go with it puts The Witcher 2 at a different level to other RPG’s and the theme has been handled with care for the most part, not exploiting the fact that these phrases have been put in, although there were a couple of times when my eyes were open a little wider to what was being said than normal.  Nudity also has its place in the game and appears early on in the game with Gerald’s trist with Triss where nipples and pubic hair are revealed which adds to the adult and ,mature manner of the game.  Again, it has been handled properly and not glorified for the sake of wanting to shock.  It is there to serve as part of the storyline and plays out as it would perhaps in a film, something that we are seeing more and more as games mature further into the realms of film convention.

One of the other big draws from The Witcher 2 on PC was the fighting system which still remains one of the best around.  Again, drawing inspiration from traditional  RPG fighting systems and also ploughs ahead with its own stamp utilising swordplay, magic as well as ranged attacks and special abilities like setting traps.  Alternating between weapons, potions and the like is as easy as pressing the left bumper to bring up a wheel in which you can select what you need.  As the wheel is displayed the gameplay slows down in time ala bullet time and whilst the action is still going on very slowly you have the time to make the required choices and carry on when the wheel is disappeared.  This opens up a whole new world of inventive and strategic gameplay like setting traps and choosing the right weapons as well as well as getting the right magic spells setup for certain creatures and although the whole concept will be a little confusing at first you will come to terms with it quick enough.  If you are unsure then an in depth, yet quite long, tutorial will show you the ins and out of combat and get you up to speed ready for you to enter the kingdom of Tameria.

Graphically, the 360 version, to my surprise, looks breathtaking considering it is running on a 6 year old console and although it does lose a little of its sheen and suffers from the odd drop in frame rate and texture popping up a little late.  If you have a powerful enough PC then it is a little obvious what you would really play it on but the CD Projekt RED can be proud of their achievement here as the colours are vibrant and the vistas will still take your breath away, even though some areas are a little fogged in places.

Overall, CD Projekt RED have produced an RPG that puts itself out there as one of the games that lead this genre and other publishers would do well to further examine some of the features of the game as well as the tightly scripted narrative that is mature in content yet deep and rich in experience encapsulating the true essence of the sometimes brutal extremes of living in the 12th century.  I stated earlier that if you have a powerful enough PC then it is best played on this format but for all of us lowly console owners, you can be rest assured that the money you are spending is money well spent and this game deserves to be an addition to any RPG fan out there as well as any newcomer that fancies dabbling in a world of magic, swordplay and fantasy.

If you haven’t already purchased The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings – Enhanced Edition then you can buy it here at a very reasonable price.

Related posts:

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2. Witcher 2: Assassin’s Of Kings Enhanced Edition – 360 So what’s new?
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