Mega Derived

I noticed the first result on a Google image search for Jessica was infact a page linking to some rather pornographic pictures of the red-headed she-candy from Dragon Quest VIII. Well, if it’s good enough for Google, it’s good enough for me! I’ve printed them out on photo paper and run them through the laminator so I can get busy with them later tonight.

Dragon Quest VIII is also conquered, for the record, thus bringing my yearly total up to a rather paltry fourteen. Still, when you consider it took me fifty eight hours to finish, and when you put that numerical statistic alongside the twenty five hour Kingdom Hearts and the one hundred and seven hours I spent on FFX, that’s over seven days of 2006 spent playing Squeenix RPG’s alone.  I think I’m making good progress.

So, I moved on to Maximo…

…Gordon fusking Bennet, Maximo is a bloody hard game. I mean, damn. It feels like a 16-bit game, and the likely reason for that is because it might as well just be one. It lacks the visual or atmospheric polish of Devil May Cry, plus it’s also woefully not sporting the ever-so-modern kind of combat system that DMC and Ninja Gaiden pack underneath their slimline, pert figures. If these games were people, and they were all standing next to each other, Maximo would just looks a bit, well, old – and fat – standing next to those two titan-like figures of masculine beauty. And if, say, I was a pretty little girl, with a slender, curvaceous figure, out on the town and looking for a good time then there would be no way I’d be taking Maximo home with me when Dante and Ryu are just shooting the shit over in the corner of the bar together.

This won’t piss people off at all! Good work Sony, you really know how to make friends and influence people!

Three Cheers! Hip Hip!

Also, muchos kudos to the comments section of that article. In my mind, those users are scrawling the message out of their own vomit and displaying it on the wall of their prison cell, because only strung out drug addicts that murdered a few old people, desperately trying to finance their next bong hit, could possibly write that badly.

I think Urban Chaos is a pretty good game. It’s got that kind of shit charm in it that I liked in Psi-Ops and The Suffering. It’s like, you know this game has piss poor production values and a team staffed mostly by monkeys and a creative vision more limited in its scope than the average Englishman’s indented evening plans on a match night. I reckon the developers also finished it in about six days.

But, throwing that aside, there’s a pretty good game underneath. The foundations are a fairly uninspired and traditional FPS game, but the ‘twist’ in it is that you’ve got a riot shield that you can draw out by hitting the L trigger that blocks everything. When you’re shielded up, no bullets are going to be pushing their way through your cranium any time soon. As long as you’re not getting shot from behind, this is. The truth is that this adds something fairly unique to the game, a novel little twist that necessitates its play for the casual gaming fan.  The completely flamboyant and gratuitous atmosphere is oddly endearing, also.

The way I see it, you’ve got pretty respected and renowned FPS games like Half-Life 2. That gets by on its excellent map design and that. Because, really, the combat in Half-Life 2 is nothing special. Then you’ve got Halo, right, and that gets by on its shields system and that. FPS games need a little twist, because the default mechanics for the genre are duller than dishwater. A little jazz, if you will. The riot shield in Urban Chaos, alongside the completely uninspired but entertaining system of replaying levels to earn different medals and thus unlocking bonus items, makes the game a fairly enjoyable morsel for the six/seven hours that it lasts for.

It’ll be relegated to the £9.99 bargain bucket in a couple of months, even though it’s better than junk like Call of Duty 2, which is apparently one of the most popular games on the 360.

And, yes, I only played it because it got a positive review on Consolevania.

Roll Up! Gather Round! Any of you pretty ladies interested in a black DS Lite a few weeks before you can be all up and getting them in yer HMV?  

I’ve, uh, recently come into some stock, and I’m prepared to let them go for seventy five each. Nah love, it’s proper legit like. You knows what I mean! It’s just cheap, like. Real cheap. Five finger discount, love. I know you want one, I can see it in your eyes. Think of the price. I’ll be gone tomorrow, you won’t be seeing me again. Once in a lifetime, darlin’! Once. In. A. Lifetime. G’wan then, cos you’re a pretty one I’ll give you one for sixty five, as long as your lovely friend buys one too. Plenty ‘a cute games on it, sunshines.

Sixty each? You’ve got yourself a cracking deal there, my lovelies. I’ll just get them out of my van.

If anyone asks you where you got it, just say Father Christmas, okay?

I want to know what’s going on with the G-Man. If his absence is not adequately explained in Episode Two and/or Three then I’m going to overnight dead rats to the Valve head office with the ever-reliable FedEx. I’d put the rats in a bit of cling film and then in a Tupperware pot so that the package doesn’t smell too much, and I’d write “Dear Gabe Newell: I have baked for you a delicious cake. Love Martin” on a post-it note and stick it on the front. Then Gabe would think “awright there guv I gots me some free cakeies” and he’d open the Tupperware pot and be stunned to see a rat carcass being eaten by magotts. He’d probably eat it anyway.

What ever happened to the “Gabe Newell is fat” jokes? Those signalled the golden age of gaming, those did.

8/10 seems to be about average, so we’ll give it that.

More thorough reviews coming soon!

I don’t know if you’re aware of the phenomenal gaming culture that surrounds the Wii60, the ‘fun’ fan-made name for the tag-team combo that Microsoft and Nintendo are allegedly forming. What this amounts to is a rather crappy internet culture, littered with ads, that makes a lot of Star Wars references and suggests that Sony is taking the role of the evil empire. If there’s one thing that the Xbox fan brigade is good at – other than loading up Halo 2 on Live and calling everyone a gay niggerjew – it’s a phenomenal creative outpouring when push comes to shove. There’s a scintillating image gallery on Wii60.com, absolutely loaded with some of the best Sony-loathing images I’ve ever seen.

Brilliant!

I especially like this one as it uses the iconic image of Gordon Freeman to represent the 360. Only, Half-Life 2 is a PC game!

Ducks and something. I don’t even know what’s going on here. I think Sony are evil, though.

Again, oppression.

These are all so good, i’ve actually printed them on HP Premium Photo Glossy paper with a 5mm white border and mounted them onto boards, which I have framed and put in my room. I can assure you; they only get funnier with time! I suggest you all do the same. Or else you’ll be opressed and, if one of my friends on Xbox Live is to be believed, killed by a pack of rabid homosexual jews.

If this is the next five years, then I’m going to kill myself.

In a recent post on another blog, it was mentioned that while summer yielded plentiful supplies of delicious foodstuffs - Wild Alaskan Salmon, English Strawberries and Broad Beans are in season right now – it is unfairly cruel on its production of quality new games. Which, to a statistic obsessed loser like myself, was a proverbial spot that begged to be picked. So I did. And the veritable cornucopia of statistical pus and blood can be represented by that percentage. 62.13%. That’s the amount of games I have on my shelf that I haven’t completed. My current statistics are as follows:

• 52 PS2 Games, 30 of which are unfinished
• 9 DS Games, 6 of which are unfinished
• 26 Xbox Games, 12 of which are unfinished
• 22 Gamecube Games, 9 of which are unfinished

The Will Hunting’s amongst us will already know that’s 57 unfinished games out of 109 total. What a freakishly scary set of results! I’m not even including the various DVD-R’s of games that I certainly haven’t acquired from the internet over the last few years. I’m guessing we’ve all got a fair amount of unfinished titles clogging up our shelves, just begging to be played.

In a recent conversation with someone, I mentioned that the greatest tragedy of disposable incomes was the fact that we accumulate so much and ultimately end up enjoying so little. 60% of my financial input into games over the past few years has been wasted. Think of the money! Think of the things I’ve missed!

So, maybe this lull of new games isn’t such a bad thing. The opportunity to catch up on the fruits of yesteryear, if you will. How I’m going to get 57 games completed in three months, I’ve got no idea.

Okay. If the RPG genre could be represented as a journey, then the games themselves would have to be the methods of transportation. FFX would be a shiny BMW given to you by a rich father as an expression of his incredible wealth. Dragon Quest VIII would be an underweight camel that you had to struggle all month, working a thankless and financially unrewarding job maintaining a field, to afford. The car is flashy, it gets you to your destination quickly. And in style. But it’s ultimately soulless. You’ve done nothing to earn it, you see. The camel, well, it’s slow and uncomfortable, but if you take care of it and get it back on its feet then you’ll have achieved something in this crazy old world.

Basically, Dragon Quest VIII is a grumpy old game that refuses to give anything up easy. And I’m not entirely sure if I like that.

For instance, I’m two hours into the game. I’ve been tasked to venture into a cave by a waterfall to retrieve an item. This is the first dungeon of the game, for the record. Anyway, if you go straight to that task when you’re told to, Dragon Quest will completely and utterly annihilate you. You will die, and the penalty for death is to lose half of your gold. So, you’ve got to spend about two hours running around the nearby forest, fighting a whole variety of nicely animated and charming cel-shaded beasties, to reach the required level (I’d say about six or seven) to accomplish the very first goal in the game. I’ve not played an RPG that feels like that since, well, Final Fantasy V. And that was a long time ago.

Meanwhile, in the first two hours of Final Fantasy X, a grand introduction has resulted in the decimation of an entire city, the protagonist getting ripped out of his reality and thrown a thousand years into the future, a fight against a giant sea monster, being taken prisoner by a group of foreign speaking weirdos and being forced to activate an underwater sea facility to recover an ancient piece of mighty technology. This is all very slick, stylish and perfectly executed by a creative team of hundreds, but it’s running virtually on rails. You’re basically just watching it happen. That’s not gameplay. Dragon Quest, on the other hand, rewards you with the satisfaction that you’ve earnt your ability. You really have levelled up.

But, even so, it feels like the last ten years never happened. This is an old game in 3d graphics. I’m very happy, however, that sometimes a company will take some sort of risk to produce a product like this. Dragon Quest deserves recognition, even if some of its slightly antiquated gameplay features are initially annoying. Hey, they might grow on you!

Okay, world. Here’s what I don’t understand. People whom are stating that now that they have finished the latest four hour excursion in the Half-Life world – commonly known as Episode One – that they are glad for episodic content and they are happy that they won’t have to wait a, presumed, extended period of time to see the next episode like they would with a retail title.

Do people forget who is developing this title? This is Valve, people. Episode One was originally conceived as Half-Life: Aftermath. Aftermath, if you’ll remember, was supposed to contain Episodes One, Two and Three in enjoyable expansion pack form. It was originally planned to be released in November. 2005. Episode One was released on June 1st, 2006. That’s a seven month delay that has produced exactly one third of what was originally promised. We’re not getting gifted by episodic content, here; we’re being screwed by it. And people are lapping it up.

People are also hailing the launch of Episode One to be a victory for episodic content. No, that’s not right at all. The real test for this fancy new content, at least when it’s being provided by Valve, is whether we see episodes Two and Three before the end of the year. Nobody can predict whether Episode Two will launch in a relatively speedy manner. But there is one thing we can all agree on, and that’s the fact that Valve are notorious for being absolutely terrible at hitting a deadline.

As for Episode One itself, it’s very good. It’s a quality title in an incredibly burnt out and stagnant genre. FPS games are beginning to bore the utter crap out of me, but this one was captivating from almost start to finish. As far as FPS games go, this is about as good as they get. I’d say it’s better than HL2 itself, but then I would; I was never overly impressed with HL2 to begin with. Episode One is bloody short, though, and I’m still not entirely convinced on the price I had to pay for it. £11? That’s thirty three quid for the whole game. That’s a bit of an expensive total cost for a game that was supposed to come out in its finished form seven months ago. I bet if it had, too, it would have only retailed at £20. So, really, we’re paying more for less. Is this really a good thing?