Mega Derived

God of War screeched to an abrupt halt tonight because I only went and bloody completed it. Bloody thing was much too short. I was just happily roaming about, lopping heads of an assortment of various demonic nasties and I run into the end boss, resulting in quite a good scrap; before I knew it the end credits were rolling down my screen. The sequel, however, is already whetting my appetite.

Good job, Sony!

And good job me. Number twenty-four is down!

Need for Speed is off da hook, homie! Man, that game is so… Bass?

Of course, criticising a Need for Speed game for its wannabe-gangsta atmosphere is an incredibly trite and cliché thing to do. Still, the game definitely is a parody of itself and therefore a clever and concise mockery of the very legion of white, fourteen year old zombies that buy this up in droves to secure its place as Christmas Number One. Another fantastic irony is that the best part of this game has nothing to do with the racing; if you truly have a “need” for “speed” then you’re better off with a copy of Burnout. Most Wanted excels in its chases. The so-bad-it’s-good cutscenes – cliché down to its ridiculous zoom-close-up freeze-frame introductions for each character - don’t hurt, either.

I got this game for the PC because I’m cheap. The graphics sure are nice; this feels like a decent Xbox 360 port. The controls are finicky to shit on the keyboard, though. But, yes, the graphics. They sure are nice. It’s a toss up between this and Burnout for most aesthetically wank-worthy racer of the year. This has higher textures and a fancier bloom, but Burnout has that hot motion blur thing a little better than this.

Did I mention the graphics were nice? Oh, yeah. Maybe you should pick this game up on the Xbox or something. It’ll save on the pad problem. Hah! You can’t! The Xbox port of this looks like absolute fucking shite! There’s no way I could play the Xbox/PS2 versions whilst knowing there’s a shinier, better looking version out there. You’re fucked either way. But there’s not a chance I’m shelling out £300 on a new console, so it’s time to get reacquainted with PC gaming.

PC Gaming is shitty because you have to spend forty minutes twiddling around with nonsensical option menus and ‘tweaking’ your shit. I spent more time pissing with the options than I did pimping up my sweet ride.

The game is nice though. There’s a certain element of atmosphere alongside controls that pushes a racing game into excellence, which is why Outrun 2 is a blue-sky utopia and the first colour you would associate with Gran Turismo 4 is old-person grey. Most Wanted is a kind of fiery yellow, and that’s a good colour to be. What more is there? You turn your car in time with the corners and win races to get cash, which you spend on cars, which advances the storyline, which means you win the game and are generally a cool guy. I’ll probably develop some more opinions when I go back to it seriously in a couple of weeks (I need to polish Burnout off first), but the first impressions are nice.

Oh, and the whole introduction segment of the game is very nice.  

As any art student will tell you, a picture paints a thousand words:

Then they’ll probably bugger off to myspace or something and upload some ridiculously high contrast pictures of them staring fish-eyed into their £15 webcam. How arty!

The Bath House! That bloody Bath House! I keep getting spotted by somebody on the second-to-last level of Chaos Theory, thus dropping my overall rating to 97% and making me feel like a dirty, good-for-nothing failure. I’ve narrowed my potential mishaps to about two parts of the level, and it’s just going back and hoping to god that it’s one of those.

Later in the game all hell breaks loose and you get thrown into some live combat situations. I don’t like these parts because the enemies become really hyper and run about like idiots. It wouldn’t be so bad if the two opposing factions could kill each other, but it seems like they just take the odd pot shot and run about, often straight into you and twitting up your chances of a perfect.

I just need to get this damn Bath House done and I’ll be ready to finish the game. I demand that I finish it tonight.

The game would be nicer if you could see your current mission stats without having to complete the level. That way I could find out who’s spotting me so much easier. And that would be delightful. Ubisoft should definitely add that little feature.

God of Misogyny more like. This is the ultimate delivery of pure, unadulterated manliness. Kratos is a more man than we could ever be; banging an endless supply of ancient greek women – no woman appears in this game without her titties hanging out - and ripping monsters to fucking pieces. If only they’d invented cigars and uzi’s in ancient Greece, because that’s the only way this game could get any more testosterone fuelled. You run into the oracle at the end of the second level, and she’s got her tits out! Rarr! Where it all went wrong for us guys, I have no idea. The modern day equivalent of pure man would be wanking off over illegally downloaded pornography in the morning and then parking our asses in front of the television for the rest of the day.

I don’t know much about the storyline yet. I hear it’s good. You’re an angry pale-skinned guy with fancy weapons and there are plenty of monsters for you to beat the shit out of. And shit-beating is exactly what you’re going to do! Your weapons feel as if they were inspired by Soul Calibur, two large swords that seem to be on chains or something, so Kratos can whip and flail them about causing an incredible amount of destruction on anything – innocent bystanders be damned – in his path.

Initial comparisons with Devil May Cry 3 are inevitable from my brain. There’s less of a focus on stylish combat; the control is taken slightly away from the player and given to the combat system. In God of War, everything looks impressive. I’d say that way is more open and friendly as it doesn’t require about five hours of training before you’re kicking ass. Overall, it feels like it’s slightly more forgiving than Capcom’s hack-and-slash offering. The graphics are better and the monsters act completely differently. If you dodge while they’re about to attack, they’ll switch to where you’re standing mid-swing. Your only option is to block. The combat system is suitably visceral and bloody and it is definitely satisfying. To be honest, you play both of them in such a different way and they’re both so bloody good you’d be a fool to not own the pair.

The only thing I don’t like so much is the fact that Kratos is an anti-hero. I’m so tired of anti-heroes. He’s always killing innocent people and not giving a shit and letting people be doomed and stuff and I just don’t want to be that guy as much as I want to be Superman; forever protecting the innocent and generally just saving the day. It’s more of a personal preference, really. It is better the way that it is, however, as Kratos does fit in nicely with the “world be damned” atmosphere of the game. It certainly doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be ‘hard’ nearly as much as shit like True Crime and that 50 Cent bullshit.

I’d say that the easiest way to make an early verdict is to see what the game has taken you away from. In my case, it’s an important essay with a Monday deadline. Oopsies!

With the announcement of the Revolution and the general buzz about the DS, you get the impression that Nintendo weren’t really into the Gamecube. I think that, for them, there was nothing in it to get excited about, so they slopped out re-workings of their big name franchises. Sure, Metroid Prime took the series in a whole new direction but nobody seemed to care (nobody bought it anyway) because of the saturated nature of the genre.

What’s interesting, though, is all the versatility and dynamism presented in Nintendo’s little, slightly aesthetically off-putting, grey box. Today I had a go at that new Castlevania game as well as Kirby’s Canvas Curse. There’s just something captivatingly unique about the pair of them, as well as a plethora of other titles available for the system. You do get an air of exclusivity when you use one; it’s a lot different from the SNES-port loaded, easy-to-emulate Game Boy Advance.

Kirby excites me because it feels like it’s harking back to a time long gone. It’s ever so slightly reminiscent of the Lemmings era; you have to guide Kirby along to the end of the level without having him run into nasty things that would rather he died. There’s no way of stopping him moving, so you’re forever using your stylus to prod, point and guide him. He’s entirely dependant on you, you see, because he’s only a pink blob.

There’s plenty of other stuff I want on it, too. Meteos, Phoenix Wright and Trauma Center are all on my ‘procure’ list. Mario Kart sound essential. It’s clever, because you – with the exception of Mario Kart - need a DS to play these cool games. You won’t be able to play it a console because they don’t have the touch screen. Segregating themselves off from the rest of the market sounded risky, but it’s paying off if you consider the quality of the games you’re getting. I think the big Japanese developers are embracing it, too, because they’re just as bored of pumping out identical games tailored to a Playstation controller as I am of playing them.

As for the PSP, I’m not feeling any magic from it. The thing is still powered by Lumines, and even then that’s equalled/bettered by Meteos and/or Zoo Keeper over at the DS camp. The screen is nice, and the graphics are shiny, but I really couldn’t give two shits about playing a handheld version of Burnout when I can get the even more visually pleasing, faster and impressive Burnout by walking over to my television. Or SSX: On Tour. Or FIFA. Or Madden, Tiger Woods X-Men Legends II, Need For Speed and Pro Evo 5. They’re all fucking ports, for fucks sake. And, as much as I want to be enthused by that Liberty City Stories, I just can’t because I doubt very much that the formula has changed since Vice City/San Andreas/Whatever and that doesn’t excite me in the same was as cutting a tumour out of a patient with the stylus. It has potential, sure, but it’s so underused that I would never buy one at present. The fact it’s so bloody expensive doesn’t help either.

So, in conclusion; Kirby and Castlevania on the DS are refreshing.

Let’s pretend the world is a wonderful place where everything is good. The conversation I would have with my zombie-like World of Warcraft addicted friends would go something like thus;

You have got to stop playing your shitty game. I know you’ve played it to the point of it becoming the complete and utter dominating factor of your day to day life, which is why you can’t give it up; I understand that. Really, I do. You’re addicted, and that’s sad. I feel very sorry for you, much in the same way as I feel sorry for alcoholics and that. But at least those guys have a support group and stuff.

Your game won’t last forever, unlike a good friendship or devoting your time to learning how to do something like play the guitar or becoming an artist. You sink all your free time, your energy, and even some of your money into your habit at the cost of everything else. Is it really worth it? I don’t think so. Don’t try and fob off that weary old argument that it’s a social experience, because you would just be talking pish. I’m talking to some of my friends as I write this, then I’m going off to write a few stories, read a book, visit my gran and all kinds of things. You can have your social experience over MSN, and the upside of that is you don’t have to spend all that time travelling, doing shitty raids and playing one of the most fundamentally basic, repetitive and tedious gameplay experiences of all time.

Your online world is static. Nothing ever changes. No matter how quickly you kill Ragnarok or whatever-the-fuck his name is, he never really dies. Neither do the players you spend so long fighting. There’s no sense of accomplishment, no sense that you’ve just done something incredible like saved the world or got revenge over your nemesis. In five minutes it’s all back to normal. The only thing that changes is your character, which is why you spend so much time hunting for loot and all that shit. I understand, I know, it’s ok. We can work it out. You like being awesome, right? Who doesn’t! Games are great escapism, aren’t they? Why not try putting the game down for a little bit – now, now, don’t get angry, just hear me out – and walking over to your Playstation. Yeah, like that. Now, put Devil May Cry 3 or God of War in it. That’s it. You haven’t done it for a long time, have you? Ok, now you have to shut the lid. You remember how to do that? Right, right, it’ll all come back.

You’ve got it loaded up? Good. Look at the character. He looks awesome already, doesn’t he? Watch how he spins his blades and generally kicks the shit out of everything. Look how fluid and intense those animations are. It’s great, isn’t it? You’re the world’s greatest warrior and you don’t need to sink away half your life, money, friends and health to achieve something that is only 4% as cool. Oh man, that combo you did there was awesome! It’s just like the old days, isn’t it? Intense, adrenaline powered games that you don’t have to spend days playing to win at. Sorry, I didn’t quite hear that. You want to know if there are more kinds of games like this? Sure there are! Let’s talk about them. I’ll get them out and we can see about playing those instead of that silly RPG.

If only life worked out like that. What I’m trying to say is your game is poison and it’s rotting you away quicker than humanity is fucking up the O Zone layer. If you don’t stop, you’ll probably get Deep Vein Thrombosis and die. There is absolutely nothing good whatsoever in the thing you so religiously play. Your new ‘friends’ are completely transparent and dull, and they would ditch you as soon as you stopped being entertainment for them. Your whole community is just sad, lonely people using other wrecks to prop themselves up and make themselves feel good. You’re nothing more than a slave to Blizzard, coughing up your money every month so that they can buy flash new cars and other meaningless, materialistic pieces of shit. You’re just a battery, like the people who are trapped in The Matrix. Just get a grip already and return to the real world.

Because, like, some of us are worried

Anyone that reads the below post and thinks i’m a saddo for thinking about shit too much, you are requested to read this forum post and then try and think of me as sad again. Or at least, as sad as those guys

Due to my recent re-acquaintance with the Splinter Cell franchise, I’ve spent an almost unhealthy amount of time thinking about Splinter Cell 4 this week. From what I can tell – it’s very likely I could be entirely wrong – they’re trying to shake the series up a bit; sail their boat down some new rivers; drive a different way to work. Etc. Which, to be fair, is not a bad idea as the series has had three games pumped out in what (feels like) a relatively short time frame. It is also not a bad idea to try and advance the dynamics of the plot somewhat, seeing as how all three games are eminently similar in that respect. Fisher and Third Echelon get involved in some sort of affair that quickly escalates in threat and global war becomes an imminent threat. Fisher then solves it in the only way he knows how, by hanging around old, slightly deserted areas/industrial city blocks in which the bad guys have foolishly decided to arrange a meeting or set up a base of operations. It’s a stealth game that uses darkness as its main feature; you can’t exactly have him in most everyday locations.

But still, what would Splinter Cell 4 mean for the dynamics of the series? The things that I quietly enjoy whilst I’m trying to bag myself a 100% rating in Chaos Theory; the narrative, the subtext; delightfully clever things that writers (usually) make completely by accident. To be completely honest, I don’t want to see too much of a change because I feel like there’s so much of the vanilla Sam Fisher that we’ve yet to see. The world doesn’t (and never will) require a ‘dark’ Fisher who is haunted by the death of his daughter. It’s just unnecessary, slightly overbearing and so ridiculously over-the-top that it leaves you wondering how writers get away with this kind of nonsense. Peppering up the game by adding needless murder is just, well, it’s not clever.

This isn’t right, because there are clever little moments here and there in Splinter Cell. Take Chaos Theory; in the mission in Japan, where Fisher has just watched one of his old friends hack up a very important person for his own nefarious means. The dialog is more than enough to encompass a figurative shed-load of subtext:

Fisher: “Is he a target?”
Lambert: “He’s THE target!”

It’s so basic, which is why it’s so effective. Fisher shows (it really does have to be heard) almost no emotion in his voice, even though he’s just discovered what can only be one of his worst fears; one of his friends has gone dirty (as they would put it). He feels nothing, but keeps himself together and requests a mission update from his superior. But the true beauty comes from the sheer clarity of the event; the man is so obviously the target, yet Fisher is entirely dependant on what he’s told. There’s a dependency expressed in his questions, in that this is a man who is so utterly and completely lost without his job for Third Echelon that you’re very almost close to feeling pity for him. Behind the wise cracking persona, there’s a man who has been shaped and moulded by his superiors into little more than a machine. He’s spent so long working for the government that you get the impression he doesn’t know of a world outside it.

It’s quite foreboding, too. Fisher obviously can’t do this forever, he is getting old – as the game is often reminding us – and there will come a point where he has to retire. There’s no way around it and, unfortunately, there’s no way we’ll ever get to see it as it wouldn’t make a good game. Fisher’s best hope is probably to be killed in action, which just emphasises his sheer dependence on his job.

Granted, I might be reading a lot into it. But then, that’s the power of simple (yet effective) plots and storylines. I fear that I just won’t get things like that in Splinter Cell 4 (apparently they’ve yanked him away from Third Echelon, for instance), and that worries. I’m sure the game itself will be fine, but a part of me is just, well, concerned about the story. This is undeniably down to what happened the last time Ubisoft decided to ‘reinvent’ a character, in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. I don’t ever want to see such a horrendous makeover again in my life.

I bagged God of War today for a tenner.