Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune tells the story of Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter, as well as a descendant of the famous historical figure Sir Francis Drake. Drake and his friend, Sully, are chasing the ancient lost city of El Dorado. Together, accompanied by journalist Elena, they follow clues in the journal that belonged to Francis Drake himself. You can expect some plot twists here and there, and for the most part, the story is great. It starts off slowly, introducing you to the characters, but when the pace picks up, you become emerged in the story, and it becomes so interesting that it is possible to want to rush ahead, simply so you can find out what happens next. The story does become something quite similar to an Indiana Jones film near the end of the game, but that can be overlooked.

Even though Uncharted does not have many characters in it, the characters that are there are, for the most part, great. Nathan Drake is the slightly annoying but charming protagonist, and he can be quite humorous at times. Sully is the older, but certainly not wiser, man of the group, that appears to only care about finding the treasure, but he is likeable enough. Even the damsel in distress character, Elena, is likeable. The interaction between the three main characters, and even with some of the enemies, is something worth seeing. The voice actors behind these characters deliver great performances, which certainly help make the characters as likeable and enjoyable as they are.

One of the first things that you will notice when you start up Uncharted is how good the game looks. The environments that you are in look amazing, as do the character models. When exploring the world, you will come across some fantastic looking places, and if you have a high definition television, you will see things in outstanding detail. One of the best things about the game’s graphics is the water effects. Water in Uncharted looks amazing. One of the neat things about Uncharted is that if Drake gets wet, you see it on his clothes, and they stay wet for a few minutes until he dries off. If you walk through water, the bottom of your jeans gets wet, but if you then roll in it, your entire body is wet. It’s a nice little touch that I appreciated.

The game doesn’t only look great, but it runs great too. The frame rate stays constant throughout the game, whether you are fighting multiple enemies or just exploring the jungle. Uncharted also animates brilliantly. Every time you reload a gun, you see the clip flying out of the gun, and Drake reaching round and grabbing another clip, before placing it in the gun. The characters are also very well animated while interacting with objects, as well as while doing other things, such as hanging off of ledges. While Uncharted does run brilliantly, I did notice quite a few instances of texture pop-in. This is only a minor problem though, and it certainly doesn’t detract away from how impressive this game looks.

One of the reasons Uncharted looks as good as it does is due to the setting of the game. The game mainly takes place in the jungle and in ancient and deserted buildings. Uncharted does well to create an almost perfect atmosphere for the setting. The jungle feels authentic, as well as the buildings that you find yourself battling in. The soundtrack also lends itself to creating a great atmosphere as it is authentic for the setting that you are in, which really helps you become emerged into the story. The sounds you will hear from the jungle are great too.

Uncharted is not just about story and setting though; there is some great gameplay there too. Uncharted is not just a simple third person shooter that consists of shooting your way through the entire game. There are some platforming elements, some basic puzzles, and a few driving sequences. The gun play is quite standard for a third person shooter, but it does feel satisfying enough that there are no complaints over the core shooting. However, enemies can take far too long to die, sometimes. You can pop an enemy in the head multiple times and he just shakes around a little bit and starts shooting back. This would not be a problem if it only happened sparingly, but it does seem to happen quite often. There also isn’t a great variety of weapons, and you will find yourself sticking to using the same guns throughout the game, until you get to a section where all of the enemies start to carry different guns, but that only means instead of the AK47, you will start using the M4, not a huge difference. You can branch out, if you really want to, but I never found a need to. Also, the grenade throwing is done by the sixaxis control, which I did not enjoy. It makes it feel clunky and it can be awkward to throw a grenade when in the middle of a challenging battle.

The platforming in Uncharted is great. It never feels too hard, but it can be just hard enough that it is not a total breeze to do. It’s enjoyable, and helps split up the gunplay. The camera often changes if you need a wider view of the jump, and while this works well the majority of the time, sometimes the camera is too wide, but luckily this only happens a small number of times. The puzzles in Uncharted are done well as they are not impossibly hard to figure out, but they can be just challenging enough that it takes a few moments to catch on. The game does well to integrate Francis Drake’s journal at these moments, which helps guide you through the puzzles. There are also a few driving sequences spread throughout the game, which are also enjoyable. The first one is only an ‘on-rails’ section with you on the gun, but it’s incredibly fun speeding through the jungle blowing up foes with the grenade launcher. The other two driving sequences consist of you driving a jet ski as Drake, and then if you press L1, you can control the shooting with Elena, which means that you are not relying on poor AI shooting. This is also quite fun, and a change of pace for the game, which is welcomed. These driving sequences do not feel thrown in, and because they do not last too long, they are fun and enjoyable. While Uncharted does do well to mix up the gameplay, there are moments where you feel that you are just running from one big gun battle to another, and this puts the game in danger of feeling repetitive at points.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is a great game; there can be no doubt about that. The story is great and something that you will definitely get involved in. The characters help make the story as enjoyable as it is, as does the setting of the game. The game also plays well. The mixture of different gameplay helps keep any repetitive nature of the game to a minimum. Uncharted certainly isn’t perfect though. The lack of an incentive to use different guns is a problem, and that does not help keeping the game from being repetitive. One of the biggest problems is the enemies that just refuse to die, as it really hinders some of the great gun battles you have in the game. Perhaps the saddest thing about Uncharted is that the game doesn’t really do anything new. It’s great at most of the things it does, but it’s still a fairly typical game of its genre. It is better than most of the games that can be directly compared to it, such as the Tomb Raider series, but there is nothing that makes it stand above some of the other superb games of this generation. There is still something to be had here though, and if you are interested in it, I definitely recommend it, as it is a game worth playing.

8.0

Wallet Abuse!

Gaming is an expensive hobby; it always has been and always will be. Most of us were children when getting our first consoles and games, which meant we had to rely on our parents getting us our games and they would often inform us “Games are too expensive!” That was then though and compared to now, they were not expensive. Just one of things that make games so expensive is the evolution of the music-rhythm game genre.

This crazy gaming genre arrived back in 1999 when Konami released its arcade games GuitarFreaks and DrumMania, both of which involved using controllers shaped around musical instruments to play a rhythm game based around music. This was the start of something huge as in 2005, Red Octane and Harmonix released Guitar Hero which sparked something very special, but very expensive!

What Harmonix and Red Octane didn’t know is that many people would fall in love with their very addictive product. Harmonix had managed to create a game that was based around Konami’s arcade games of 1999 but made it so fun and so easy to pick up and play that it attracted gamers and non-gamers alike. As any successful game in this age, a sequel was made and eventually publisher giants Activision bought publishers Red Octane and gained a new but very successful series to add to their already impressive line up. With this, Harmonix split off and joined with MTV and created a new game, the multi-instrument edition, Rock Band.

Now, Activision are releasing sequels and expansions to Guitar Hero every few months while Harmonix announces a Rock Band 2. So, where is the money problem? The problem arises when you think about the quantity of plastic controllers that you have to buy in order to play these games. Of course you don’t have to buy the controllers every time one of these games comes out but some do. The full Rock Band bundle includes a guitar controller, a drum controller and a microphone and costs a pretty penny to buy. Rock Band only came out in November in the US and May in Europe and already a second one has been announced and is to be expected in the fall. There will be more controllers to buy this time round and many people might, although there should be no need to.

To add to this, Activision has announced Guitar Hero: World Tour, which is basically the same as Rock Band in the sense of its more than just guitar now, despite “Guitar” still being in the title. There is a whole new drum kit controller and of course a new guitar controller. The main problem is that the two publishers are not working together to make controllers compatible with each other’s games, which means there could be a massive hole in your wallet or purse if you are a fanatic of the genre and want to play both games on more than just guitar. To add to this even more, Konami has decided to jump into the console rhythm market too with Rock Revolution, which again features multiple instruments.

How long is the genre going to continue to grow like this? How many times are we going to have to buy these expensive bundles just to enjoy a game to its fullest? There is strong reason to believe that this genre will just get even more insane as it’s managed to grow so fast in a relatively short period of time. These companies are always going to keep outdoing each other with the next best thing and the only ones that suffer are the consumers who are too addicted to this genre to skip these games.

To anybody who doesn’t play a lot of the genre, you may be wondering what is so addictive that makes players crazy enough to buy all of this, over and over. Well, it is simply because they offer fun, great and addictive gameplay both single player and multiplayer. The best thing about Rock Band is getting a group of friends together and going crazy. It is reminiscent of the old days where friends would get together and play 4-player splitscreen and have a ball of a time. It can provide many nights entertainment, even if your friends don’t play games very often. It can be so much fun, even on your on, which is why many people keep buying all of this hardware. It might be a lot of hardware, but at the end of the day, it’s totally worth it!

It’s easy to see why gaming is more expensive these days compared to several years ago, especially if you are a big fan of the music-rhythm genre. With constant sequels and even more newcomers, there is an almost constant stream of these games being released, which is great because there is more fun to be had, but just keep an eye on your wallet before it decides to attack you because of serious abuse!

Lego Star Wars: Complete Saga (Xbox 360) – Review

Lego Star Wars and Lego Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy were both successful Traveller’s Tales games that sparked a lot of interest in turning popular film franchises into lego games. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga is a package game that combines both of the Lego Star Wars games, and it does so in a very smooth and effective way.

Lego Star Wars follows the story of all six Star Wars films and retells them using it’s charming gameplay and even more charming cutscenes. The basic story follows the Star Wars films, but minor details are changed, for comical effect more than anything and it certainly works in creating a fun game, that is definitely not just for children. The story is told through cutscenes which are incredibly charming and easy to love. All of the characters have voices and express their emotions by a series of grunts and actions. You will find yourself laughing and smirking throughout every cutscene.

It is not a bad thing that there is no voice acting; it actually makes for a more enjoyable experience when playing through the story. All of the biggest moments of the saga are featured in the game e.g. the fall of Anakin, the birth of the Empire, the moment when Darth Vader reveals he is Luke’s father, although it’s slightly different in the game as he shows Luke a picture of him and his mother and grunts a few times. Overall, any part you can think of, Lego Star Wars includes it somewhere, and puts a nice twist on it to remind you this is a light-hearted game.

One of the most important things in the Star Wars films, alongside the great story, is the fantastic soundtrack, which is certainly not missing in Lego Star Wars. The most memorable tracks are ever so present throughout the game and the game does well to integrate tracks, for example, when you use the force on some tables and chairs, the infamous bar tune plays or when you build a jukebox in Jabba’s place, his minions come running to rock out to the dark side tune. The sound effects are great too. From the swinging of the light sabres to the firing of the blasters, everything is perfect. The sound does well to enhance the Star Wars experience. Not only does the game sound great, the game looks great too. Running in HD, the game looks very crisp and very clean. It is not a technical achievement by any means, but for this basic game, the graphics are very nice.

Lego Star Wars isn’t just about pretty graphics and a great story though, the game plays great too. It’s a pretty standard platformer, but standard isn’t a bad thing. There are many playable characters, and many character types. There are jedis and siths, druids, stormtroopers, bounty hunters, and more. Each character type can do different things and for most levels, you experience a good mix of characters. Once you have played through the story on a level, you can re-play the level on freeplay and pick your own character as well as change between several other characters in the middle of the level, which is useful for collecting items that would otherwise be out of reach. Throughout all of the levels, there are several items that you can collect. Collecting things can be both fun and irritating as you may go through an entire level just to collect something near the end of it, and not have the right character to be able to collect that item which means you have to play through it again. The story line is quite lengthy due to there being 6 levels in each of the episodes which means 36 levels in total. Most players will find themselves completing the game in around 12 hours.

A big problem with Lego Star Wars is replay value. Once you have finished the story, there are some things that you might want to go back and collect if you are into that sort of thing, but other than that, there are not that many options. There are a few extra side missions you can do, but they are pretty minimal. There are many extras that can be unlocked by finding Red Power Bricks throughout the levels, but they aren’t really worth it and in some places, make the game too easy and boring. You can play online with friends, but only friends, which limits the online experience more than it should. The Xbox 360 achievements are worth a mention due to them helping the game in terms of replay value, and also in terms of the humorous nature of a lot of them e.g. ‘Let the Wookie Win’ involves ripping off a certain number of enemy arms with a wookie

Lego Star Wars: Complete Saga does a great job of combining both Lego Star Wars games and updating them. The games, at their core, are still the same, loveable games that they were before. The story humour is fantastic and well worth seeing. The soundtrack is perfect in terms of the Star Wars franchise. The gameplay is fun enough, but the lack of real replay value is a big let down. It’s fun collecting things, but it gets tedious after a short time. For newcomers into Lego Star Wars, the game is great value for money as you are getting a lengthy and enjoyable game but for anybody who already owns or has played through both games previously, it’s not really worth buying this one again.

8.0

The Hassle of Gaming

After recently jumping back into the PC market, I have remembered how much a nightmare PC shopping, and gaming in general, is. I have had the same PC for years upon years now, and I finally decided it was time to branch out and get a new PC. It was while shopping around online that I came to remember how much I hate PC shopping, and it’s worse now than it was back when I got this rig.

The reason it’s worse now is that pretty much five minutes after something comes out, something better comes out. This is not limited to the world of gaming, it’s just the way everything is these days. Anyways, after countless hours of searching, reading and comparing, I was still at square one. There are so many aspects to take into account when shopping for a new PC, or even just PC parts to upgrade your current rig. If you manage to get your head around things long enough, you might just make it out of there alive. Now, I am quite a clued up person when it comes to this sort of thing since I read about it most days and like to keep myself in the know, but even I was confused at some things. There will be plenty that fully understand everything, but I just feel sorry for people who don’t know the basics, they might just get themselves in too deep.

Of course, shopping for a PC would be so much easier if you didn’t have to upgrade a week later due to your brand new PC being out of date. It’s a constantly moving market, but one that is rewarding enough to justify staying with. The best and worst thing about PC gaming is the fact that you can upgrade. It’s the best thing because PCs are, for the most part, easily upgradeable. It’s the worst thing because you will need to upgrade, and fast, if you want to keep up with the PC games of today and tomorrow.

It’s not even like console gaming of today is much easier for a normal person to get to grips with. Sure, buying a console and plugging it in to a TV is much easier than wrapping your mind around PC hardware, for the most part anyway. However, there are problems that can arise when buying consoles. The first being, which one do I buy? There are three out there and even the cheapest, is still quite a lot of money in the long term. Once that problem is out of the way, you have the ‘small’ matter of HD if you have picked one of the HD consoles.

Gone are the days of unboxing a console, plugging a scart into the TV and that’s it. In those days, they looked the best they can, as there were no other options. It’s not like that now, unfortunately. Now, we have to spend another big heap of money on a nice HDTV, followed by making sure we connect the console using the right cables, and finally making sure it is actually turned onto HD. I say this because not too long ago, I popped round to my friends pad and played some Xbox 360 with him and his flatmates. I instantly noticed that the game and console was not running in HD, even though they had a HDTV. They done the first part right and connected using the component cables but they hadn’t actually configured the console to HD. Why are there so many options? I knew instantly, but they didn’t. While it might not be a big deal to some that other’s might not get the full experience, it’s a big deal to me if they have everything and because of how hard it is, don’t realize they aren’t using everything and taking advantage of the hardware they have bought.

This brings me onto another point, HD cables. Again, to some of us it’s pretty simple, but we have spent hours reading, listening and discussing things like this, but to those who haven’t, they don’t and may never know. I am talking about the 360 here because at this moment in time, I do not own a Playstation 3. Anyways, the 360 comes with component cables to connect to a HDTV. Fine, that’s HD, isn’t it? Yes, but not full HD. If you have a TV bigger than 32” and it is a 1080P TV, then you cannot get full HD on component, but you need another cable such as HDMI. The real kicker is, the 360s never used to have a HDMI port. Again, this is old news to a lot of us and frankly, irrelevant, but to somebody who doesn’t visit a gaming site regularly, this is one big headache. Gaming should be easy to set up, but these days, it just isn’t.

And the most important thing about everything here, expense! Pretty much everything relating to games will cost you more than a pretty penny. PC hardware is expensive, consoles are expensive, HDTVs are expensive and games themselves are expensive, especially when bought in large amounts. Your wallet/purse will suffer if you are one of those people that have to have everything as soon as it comes out, even if you have a nice paying job.

The conclusion here is that there is more hassle in gaming today than there has ever been but, at the same time, gaming just keeps getting better and better. It’s worth getting confused and it’s worth getting these headaches when buying things, and it’s even worth spending more money than you might think wise and that’s just because games today keep improving and that gives us a BIG reason to keep up with them.

Lost: Via Domus, Xbox 360 – Review

“Lost: Via Domus is a disappointing game that doesn’t offer much outside of a semi-interesting story and good music.”

Lost: Via Domus is a third person action-adventure game from Ubisoft that takes place on the mysterious Island that Oceanic flight 815 crashes on. Lost introduces some new characters and tells a story of which has not been covered in the Lost TV series, features many important and memorable scenes from Lost and delivers a genuine Lost experience.

The strongest aspect of Lost: Via Domus is the story. In Lost, you play as Elliot the photojournalist, a flight 815 survivor who is suffering from Amnesia after the plane crash. As Elliot, your main goal is to try and remember your past, why were you on the plane, who you are and who is the girl you keep seeing. Trying to remember your past is not the sole storyline though, you also take part in many of the iconic scenes from the first season of Lost including entering the infamous numbers into the computer. Along with the numbers scene, there are several moments throughout the game that fans of the show will look fondly on. There are really two separate storylines in Lost, the past and present. The storyline involving the past is when Elliot is desperately trying to regain his memory, and the storyline of the present coincides with the storylines of the main Lost show that any fans will be familiar with and it mainly consists of Elliot trying to get off of the island, as any stranded survivor should.

The way in which the story is told is quite integral to the enjoyment of the game. The basic set up for the game is seven episodes. At the start of each episode, you get a highlights reel from the previous episode/s and on the whole, this is great. It feels like you are watching an episode of the TV show when you hear “Previously on Lost” followed by a montage of events. On top of that, the ‘past’ storyline is told through cut scenes, which any fan of Lost will surely pick up on and appreciate the story a little bit more. The cut scenes are interactive where you can control Elliot in order to get a photograph of a moment that will help you regain memory. These things together make a more authentic Lost experience and one that creates more enjoyment to the game’s story. While the story does intertwine with the events of the TV show, you do not have to have knowledge of the show before playing the game, although if you haven’t seen the show you will be missing out on many of the references, and the characters from the show won’t seen as important. You do not get to know many of the characters during the course of the game and while that is fine if you are a fan of the show and know their personalities anyway, if you do not know them then they will seem boring and rather pointless.

Speaking of which, the ‘Losties’ should be a highlight of the game but the truth of the matter is, they aren’t. For one, the characters from the show do not play much of an important part in the story. The story in present time does revolve around some actions of them, but on the whole, they seem pretty unimportant. Secondly, the character models look down right bad. While some of the characters look pretty alike the TV show counterparts, some others just plain do not. The characters that the game introduces look pretty good, but then again, they aren’t meant to look like anybody from the show. The worst thing about the Lost characters though, and probably the game, is the voice acting. From the first time you hear Kate’s ‘voice’, you pick up on just how bad the voice acting is, and that feeling continues right up and there are only a couple of characters that actually sound like their show counterparts. The best voice acting in the game comes from Elliot, but again, he isn’t meant to represent a character from the show. The voice acting is so bad that the subtitles for dialogue come as a relief so you can turn down the volume and not have to put up with the awful voice acting. The bad voice acting would not be such a disappointment if the game was not meant to be part of the Lost universe where these characters have such distinct voices in the show.

Perhaps the bad voice acting could be forgiven if the gameplay made up for it, but it fails on that front too. While it is kind of cool at the start of the game to walk around the beach that becomes your new home on the island, it grows old pretty fast. You walk around the beach and have to talk to characters to get hints or trade items and then you head off into the jungle in order to progress. This starts to get a bit tedious, especially when you reach your destination only to find a fuse box puzzle waiting to be solved. The puzzles are pretty annoying most of the time because you have to find fuses around the area in order to complete the puzzle, and they can be pretty easy to miss which means you search round an area over and over just to find one little thing to complete a puzzle. Another gameplay element that was thrown in was avoiding the smoke monster when out in the jungle. This is more frustrating than it is an extra challenge. You can jump into trees to provide cover if it gets close to you, but even when it looks like it has flown off, it can come out of nowhere again, then once you have lost it, you have also lost where you were going and have to backtrack, only to get found by the monster again. The thrills of the chase kind of wears off after the first time you escape it. The main problem with the gameplay of Lost is just how similar it all seems, there is little to no variety in what you are doing and considering the game only lasts 5-6 hours makes it even worse. What makes matters even worse is the fact that there is no replay value. Once you have finished the story, you have finished everything the game has to offer, and while the story is good, you won’t need to play it a second time. Shorter games are becoming more and more common but the fact that Lost: Via Domus has no replay value what so ever makes it even harder to like and even harder to recommend.

The graphics and sound are a mixed bag. The environmental graphics are pretty crisp and the beach, jungle,caves and any environment in general looks pretty nice. The problem with the graphics arises when you look at the character models. None of them look that good and they just look rough around the edges most of the time, especially for the characters from the TV show. The sound (aside from voice acting) on the other hand is constantly fantastic! A lot of tense atmosphere is built up through the use of the soundtrack and just the sound effects in general. For instance, if you are in a dark cave and you run out of torches, you begin to hear something creep up on your position and if you don’t light a new torch fast enough, you soon realize you aren’t alone in the cave. It’s not just tension that the soundtrack is good for creating though, but when it’s a slow and calm moment in the game, there is a lovely musical score running through the background. Lost: Via Domus definitely follows in the TV show’s footsteps of good music, which is a relief.

Overall, Lost: Via Domus really only offers a story, but when that story only lasts a few hours, you would expect good character models and good voice acting at the very least, but you do not get that in Lost. Together with boring and tedious gameplay, it makes it hard to recommend Lost to anybody outside of the Lost loop, and even if you do like Lost the show, there is definitely no guarantee you will like Lost: Via Domus. The soundtrack is fantastic and hardcore Lost fans will get a genuine Lost experience from the story, but other than that, the game offers nothing of great value, especially if you do not follow the TV show.

5.0

The Simpsons Game – Xbox 360 Review

“A funny story with great graphical presentation doesn’t stop The Simpson’s Game from being ‘just another Simpsons game’”

The Simpsons Game is a third person action game from EA. The game, which you may expect, is based on the ever so popular Simpsons family. In the game, you will take up the roles of Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge and even Maggie occasionally. The game has several puzzle elements that you must figure out, as well as a whole range of enemies that need defeating.

The most notable part about The Simpsons Game is the humour. It is expected that anything that carries the Simpsons title should be funny, and this game certainly does not disappoint in that respect. There are several moments throughout the story that you are likely to have a really good laugh at. It is great to see such a light-hearted, funny game in amongst the space and war shooters of today. The funniest parts of The Simpsons Game come in the form of the cutscenes, which are fantastically written and is like watching the cartoon at it’s funniest time. Even when just wondering around levels or Springfield, characters will say hilarious things that you will laugh at and appreciate. There are several jokes, gags and just plain comedy that will stick out while playing the game and just like in the show, each character has a different personality. Homer will say funny things which relate back to him being stupid and probably too dependent on beer and food, Bart will say things to fuel his ‘rebel child’ position and so on. Each character has something to give to the humour.

A great deal of the humour can be derived from the story elements of the game. In the Simpsons Game, you compete in an eating competition, you help stop a museum heist, you shut down a company that plans on cutting down all the tress and you save the earth from an alien invasion, not to mention that you spend time in a game engine and then different kinds of games and of course, you fight bunnies made from chocolate. The story might seem a little crazy, but it actually flows really well. By far the most interesting aspect of the story is how it interacts with the video game industry. Not only is some of the levels based on video games e.g. Medal of Homer, Grand Theft Scratchy, but there are references to video game popular culture. For instance, Will Wright makes an appearance in the game as a ‘mini boss’ type figure. There was also a reference to Billy Mitchell while running around the Game Engine room. On top of that, sections within some levels change to turn into a classic game type e.g. Space Invaders. If you have knowledge of the gaming industry and classic games, you will definitely spot some references, which will make you appreciate the story just that little bit more. A possible downside to the volume of game references is the advertising for EA. You will spot EA posters and stickers throughout the game that might take away from the experience, but all in all, it isn’t too bad.

Another thing that helps The Simpsons Game feel like the show is the graphics. When playing the game, the graphics are very similar to that of the show, but everything is in 3D and HD and looks fantastic. The style is very nice and it actually feels like you are running around Springfield, like in the cartoon. The animation is good too; everything moves nicely and there wasn’t a moment where the animation didn’t hold up to the actions, although there were a few instances where the frame rate dropped slightly, but it was only on a few occasions. The HD makes the graphics feel even better and if you have a HDTV, it looks better than the actual show.

Not only does the game look pretty great, the game sounds great too. The game features the voice cast of the show and they do a terrific job of integrating the voices into the game and it’s story, which is to be expected. Not only are the cast present, the game’s soundtrack is strong too and while going through many of the levels, take some time out to listen to the back track, it makes it feel like a more authentic experience. Another little sound touch that is much appreciated is the small sound effects. For instance, there is a level that includes ice and snow, when you walk on the snow, you hear the ‘crunchy’ noise you would expect to hear when walking on some snow. For different surfaces, you hear different noises. We might expect that of a game in this day but it’s still great to hear.

This game is not all pretty graphics and funny story though; it does have its share of problems. The gameplay is not as fun as it first appears. In most levels, you take control of two Simpson’s family members and alternate between the two in order to get through the level. Each member of the family has their own unique powers and while some of them are pretty cool at first, it soon wears off. The game starts to get a little repetitive when you realize that you are doing the same thing over and over again. There are small puzzles throughout the levels, and at first they might take a few minutes to figure out but they soon become very easy because you just have to do the same thing as the first puzzle of this kind. You either have to look for something for Bart to grapple onto, or something for Lisa to lift up using her ‘Hand of Buddha’ power and so on. The game isn’t particularly long either and can probably be ran through in 6 hours, although, there are things to do other than the story with collectibles and time challenges, but the story is the most interesting part of the game.

The Simpsons Game gameplay also lacks a certain execution. In one level, you are fighting a giant Lardman that shoots lasers, fine, and because of the repetitive nature of the game, you soon realize how to take him down. The problem arises when you actually begin the fight against him. It’s a ‘good old’ three-stage battle where all three stages are similar. It soon becomes highly frustrating when you are doing the right thing, but you can’t get quite close enough to him because you aren’t quite high or close enough, and sometimes even when you are high enough, the angle and position is too awkward. The game also suffers from horrible camera angles. There were countless moments in the game where the camera would be situated in a horrible position. You can rotate the camera, but it would stop if it came ‘into contact’ with a wall or an object, which meant for some tricky sections where you had to jump from one pole to another it was very hard to see where you were going. The bad camera angles really hinder the enjoyment of some of these very well designed levels.

The Simpsons world has sparked a lot of games over the years and while The Simpsons Game is new and different, it boils down to ‘just being another Simpsons game’. It’s funny, which they usually are, but it lacks the execution to be a great action game. The nice graphics and great sound just aren’t enough to rescue the bad gameplay. The gameplay, coupled with horrible camera angles, stops the chances of this game being great. For a hardcore Simpson’s fan, it might be worth checking out although renting is probably the best option for anybody that likes the Simpson’s because the game simply isn’t as fun as it first might appear to be.

Games are too addictive!

After completing Grand Theft Auto 4 with 100%, I look back and think, “Why did I go for that?” Not that I am regretting it, quite the opposite actually, but due to the fact that it doesn’t actually give you anything aside from an achievement if you have the 360 version, and while I love getting achievements, that isn’t why I went for 100%. The reason that I went for 100% in GTA4 was simple; I completed the story line and didn’t want to stop playing. When this happens in a game, it’s usually due to the game being great, but even with the ‘greatness’ of GTA4, running about in a massive city trying to find small little items in order to fully complete the game isn’t exactly what I want to be doing in games. If there is one common thing I hate in games, it’s collectable items. Collectable items can be found in a whole bunch of game genres and there is nothing worse than being addicted to game that has collectable items throughout its entirety, yet, if the game is good enough to keep me wanting to play after story completion then I will most likely get these items that I hate. Although, I am only talking about single player, some other games have a fantastic multiplayer to keep you playing.

That leads me onto the next section of why games are too addictive, because of multiplayer. I love having a great multiplayer to knuckle down into after completing the single player story/campaign as it can expand the games life by at least 10 times as much, and a whole lot more in some cases. The problem is, a game with a fantastic multiplayer can hinder your experience with other games. You can be too addicted to one game’s multiplayer to either A. Not notice any other games or B. Notice other games, buy them and not play them. This can mean other great games can be easily overlooked. This all depends on individual experience and will power, although I have noticed myself buying a fully priced game that I have every intention of playing but then being invited to a multiplayer match of a fantastic game and then ditched my new game that I just shelled out for. It’s not like the game will disappear if I don’t play it straight away, but if I bought a game at its RRP price, I want to be able to play it. This doesn’t happen too much because I am more of a single player guy than a multiplayer guy anyway, but some games have a multiplayer aspect that is too good to miss out on.

And its not just playing games that are addictive that’s the problem but buying games has become too addictive now. Most of us have probably been in the situation where we are in a shop, browsing through games with no intent on buying one and then spot a very reasonably priced game and then the question of “Should I just go and get this game?” springs into mind and if the price is really quite good and I have a semi-interest in the game, I will most likely buy it, which I shouldn’t. I usually have enough games to play at once, buying one for the sake of it doesn’t help anything, especially if it just sits on the shelf for a good period of time while I continue to play other games that I already had previously. I am a collector at heart and I never trade away games, but there is collecting and then obsessive collecting. Collecting games is fine if you do it at the right time e.g. when you need a new game to play, but going out and buying a game that I really don’t need to buy pushes over into the obsessive collecting. Sure, some people might say that if the price is really good then there isn’t a reason to not get it, but there actually is a reason to not get it, the simple fact of “You don’t NEED it and you won’t play it for a while.” It’s better to get into the habit of finishing your current games and then looking to pick up a new one than stocking up on games that you simply didn’t need to buy.

*Sigh*, it’s a never-ending circle. Single player games keep me collecting things in game that I hate, multiplayer games keep me playing games over other games and then the backlog builds up but I just add to it by seeing a good price point and picking up a new game. The joys of gaming these days are disguised sometimes…

Introduction

Hello there.

This blog is just a place where I can archive any writing I do. I will be writing primarily about games and the games industry. I plan on doing reviews, general articles and just writing on things within the industry that I find personally interesting.

I will try and keep this blog as objective as possible, but occasionally personal thoughts might slip in and out.