FEATURE
As usual i am overworked and underpaid - you think you've got it hard, try being me and doing my job!
If you've been a good slug this year (just like me) then you'll have received some lovely games for Christmas. One game i unwrapped was Far Cry 2 on the XBox 360. This was a game i'd been looking forward to for a very long time and it had a good few games journalists excited too. And rightly so, for it is the sequel to one of 2004's best games. It promised many new features, such as a graphical standard never before seen on any home console, some classy weather and elemental effects (the best of which is the fire) and an open-world game setting.
However, Far Cry 2 is a classic case of more is lettice (less)!
Most games these days are trying to mimic the open world stylings of a certain Playstation 2 game, Grand Theft Auto 3. This was the first console game that allowed the player to indulge in a fully 3D living, breathing world and proved to be a massive success. Unfortunately, when something does well in the gaming world it spawns countless clones and mimics and GTA 3 was no exception.
Which brings me back to Far Cry 2. Gone are the linear, story-led stand-alone stages found in the first game and instead is a more open-world game where the player can take numerous routes to get to any location. And as a slug i think it's all the more worse for it!
In the first game you would move from one area to another and the game would still be fresh on each of the levels, despite them all featuring similar enemies and similar weapons. After finishing the game, i found myself wanting to revisit some memorable locations a second time. But in Far Cry 2 not only would enemies and weaponry become familiar from mission to mission, but also the game localations too.
And that's my point, the game is full of back-tracking and re-tracing of steps over the same locals. The developers tried (and in many ways succeeded) to vary the locations by having many different climate types in Africa, but i don't think it compensates for the amount of times you have to travel over the same piece of land and see the same village or the same checkpoint again and again. The checkpoints are something else too; not only are you going over the same ground over and over again, but you also find that every checkpoint you clear of enemies suddenly becomes re-manned within minutes, making travel a battle of attrition.
Will you make it back to Mike's Bar? More over, can you be bothered to kill the same enemies at the same checkpoint for the umpteenth time??
It's not all bad though. Far Cry 2 is a eye-popping game to look at; the graphics are just sublime and you feel like you're really there in Africa. The day/night cycle is as good as you'll ever see and sun-sets are just beautiful. Stunning in fact! And then there's the sunrise again in the morning. Just brilliant! And the weapons are a joy to use, with a nice touch of weapon-failure if you rely on rusty old shooters dropped by dead bad guys. Unjamming them in the middle of a gun fight really gets the heart pounding and adds to the African experience. Then there's the A.I., as good as Far Cry ever was with the enemy out-flanking you in the long grass as you try and patch your wounds up.
It's a shame then that if Far Cry 2 had stayed more like the first game, and not tried to be like every other GTA-clone out there, then it would have been a contender for game of this console generation!
As it is, it is merely a good game and one that'll be forgotten in a sea of GTA wanna-be's...
(The opinions of dave the magic slug do not represent the views of those at Mooneyman Studios)
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I am the one that is right...
I AM THE ONE THAT IS RIGHT!!!!!
I am sick and tired of people with different opinions to me - I AM ALWAYS RIGHT!!! When will you lot understand this FACT?
Someone on the internet once said to me that the XBox 360, the Wii and the almighty Playstation 3 all had their strengths and that everyone should buy these consoles according to what games they like. THIS IS SO WRONG!!
Firstly, let's just get one thing straight - the Playstation 3 is the BEST! These are the reasons why;
1. The Playstation 3 can play Playstation 2 games and they were the best games of the last generation of consoles. That means i am right!
2. The Playstation 3 is made by Sony and Sony are the best. Microsoft are evil because they made Internet Explorer (the PC's most popular internet browser) and Windows (the PC's most popular operating system). Because they are doing better than everyone else on the PC they are EVIL! Everyone on the internet agrees with me and that means i'm right!
3. The Playstation 3 has a Blu-Ray player and is the most expensive of the three consoles, therefore it plays the best games, FACT! That means i am right!
There are other reasons too, but because i am already right about this (and everything else) there is no need to write them here. There is something else that annoys me though and that is this: everyone says that multiformat games appear better on the XBox 360.
The reason for this is that the PLAYSTATION 3 (i am writing this in capitals because it is the best console!) is so great and Sony are the good guys in the gaming world, Bill Gates has paid every one of the world's games developers to make the PLAYSTATION 3's version of games slightly worse than the XBox 360's. This just proves how EVIL Microsoft are!
And it also proves that i am the one who is always right!!!
(The opinions of Righteous Alan do not represent the views of those at Mooneyman Studios)
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"You'll never guess what!!!!!!!"
Wow-wee!!! I was shopping (with my mum) at Merry Hill the other day and she let me go off on my own for half an hour - i was so thrilled 'coz it mean't i could do whatever i want. So i went to HMV and had a look at what they had on their demo pods. Oh. My. GOD!!!!!!!
That's right, they had the new Need For Speed: Undercover game, it was amazing!!!!!! What i couldn't understand though, was the fact that no-one else was playing either of the X-Box's set up with this amazing game - come on people, it's the brand new game in the world's best racing game franchise!!!!! Anyway, i played on it for ages, it's fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!
The first thing i noticed was the amazing graphics; the whole game world was so unique and amazing and i've never seen any game with these sorts of street racing ever before!!!!!! Well, except for Midnight Club 3.
And Juiced.
And Burnout Paradise.
And Fast And The Furious.
And every other Need For Speed game from the last 6 years - but this was even cooler than all of those put together times 1 million-squillion, seriously!!!!!!!!
And i loved all the cars, they were amazing!!!!!!! They had every car i've ever dreamed of wanting when i can afford one, like the WV Golf and some Nis-suns and everything - most of these cars were in the last Need For Speed game, and the one before that, and the one before that, but when you pay £40 for a game no-one likes changes and surprises, do they? That's why i ask for every Need For Speed game every year for Christmas, 'coz i know what i'm getting - brilliant!!!!!!
Another amazing thing about Need For Speed: Undercover was the difficulty. I'm amazing at games but this made me look even more amazing 'coz the difficulty level was really low and i could beat all the opponents on every track first time!!!! As well as this, the game makes it easier for me still by not having much traffic on the roads too. That's amazing, it was so stupid to have civilian cars on a public road in a game anyway!!!! EA have done an amazing job this year - at least it means i can finish the game as fast as possible and see the ending as soon as possible, brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!
The final thing i noticed about the game was the stuttering the game developers had managed to fit into the game - if you play using the chase cam (no-one likes the camera when you can't see the car, it makes the game too hard and unrealistic!!!!!) the frame rate drops, making everything stutter and stuff - how cool is that?!?!?!?!?!? It must've taken them aaaaaaaaaaages to come up with that idea and i can't believe no-one else has tried it before - wow-wee!!!!!!
So anyway, i'm definitely gonna ask Father Christmas for Need For Speed: Undercover this year, it's the best game i've played all year and i'm sure it'll get reviewed really highly and get 10/10 and stuff!!!!!
I just hope i'm allowed it 'coz i was late back meeting my mum and now i'm grounded for a week..... :(
(The opinions of Apparition Kid do not represent the views of those at Mooneyman Studios)
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ANDREW, THE REALLY ANGRY WORM
I am so angry, and i mean really angry! I am so angry, i could eat my own ears, and i don't even have any ears. That's how angry i am!
This weekend, i learned that Harmonix and its publishing partners (including Electronic Arts and MTV Games) in the U.S. have decided to pull out of their policy of refunding anyone who found that their Rock Band instruments had broken, unless of course it was still under the 60 day warranty and the owner still has his or her receipt.
Up until 1st October this year, Harmonix and their partners were wavering this 60 day rule and replacing all broken pieces of hardware once the owner visited the customer support website. They have now gone and reversed this decision (strangely enough not long before Rock Band 2 was due for release, complete with stronger instruments...). As a result, a number of law suits are due to be filed against them for breach of the law which states that the instruments should have been sold in "merchantable quality and fit for the purpose for which defendants marketed, advertised, and sold such products to plaintiff and the proposed class."
With instruments that break and become unusable within a few months, clearly there is a case to be made against them.
The fact that Harmonix, EA and MTV Games sell these shoddy-quality tools in the first place is enough to make me want to fire-bomb the local newsagents in my hometown, Wormsville. However, the fact that they charged up to £150 for these instruments - AND SOMETIMES WITHOUT THE GAME! - is a downright disgrace! The kind of thing i'd expect from from a flatworm, not you humans in your game shops.
I for one did not buy Rock Band, mainly due to the high price-point the game and its instruments were pitched at. I wanted this game to fail, and for EA and MTV Games to be so gutted about low sales that they would begin selling it for nearer £70 (fat-chance!). However EA and MTV Games stuck by their guns and the game sold fairly well. And it is a great game, i have to admit. I do still believe that it's way over-priced, especially when you see that there are still things you need to buy for the drum kit, such as the pad silencers, to complete the hardware.
And i also think that Guitar Hero World Tour is a great game too, with even greater instruments. However, as long as there are worm holes in the ground for me to live in, i will not be held to ransom by the fat-cat publishers who insist i spend the same amount of money as i could on a brand-new X-Box 360 on a game and a couple of (potentially-poorly) manufactured plastic instruments. The price makes me reeeeeeeeally angry! However, there's only one thing that makes me more angry than this.
And that's the fact that my opinion makes no difference because you lot will still keep buying it in your thousands! And that makes me so angry, i'm going to go spit on some ladybirds!!
(The opinions of Andrew, the really angry worm do not represent the views of those at Mooneyman Studios)