Update coming

Okay just a very quick message. I’m bringing Frankenstein back to fix this monster. Update due at some stage.

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising

Operation Flashpoint: Rising Dragon (360)

Codemasters

Review

Well this was the first on the October wish list so I think I should get a wee review out on this.

What can I say, so many fond memories of the original Operation Flashpoint on the PC. The original wasn’t pretty looking(the worst shadows in game I’ve ever seen), very rigid, clunky but deadly. Still for some reason the realism and intense action this brought kept this game alive. The strongest point in Operation Flashpoints have always been the multiplayer elements. Imagine a more damage realistic Bad Company (360/ps3) or Battlefield (360/Ps3) then you have a better idea of how intense Operation Flashpoint can be (Ok I’m starting to get bored typing Operation Flashpoint so for convenience (my own) I’m going to abbreviate this to OF:DR).

So OF:DR…how did it stand up to the test of time. Well I expect this to be found in many a pre-owned or bargain bins very soon. So if you want a good deal wait until then. Being released so close to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will not be doing this game any favours but in truth…it may be a silent bonus for us players.

You see if you want to be Rambo and storm into the base guns blazing, shrugging off hits and returning fire as hails of gunfire turn rooms into Swiss cheese…DO NOT PLAY THIS. Simply put. You. Will. Die. This game is all about the realism and ok the AI sometimes can be thick as pig shit but at other times I’ve been successfully flanked and ambushed with deadly efficiency. If you like to take it slow and easy, crawling through the dirt and scoping up for the perfect snipe, adjusting for bullet drop, Calculating your moves and timings then this is for you (Think back to old school Rainbow 6 but on a open world war map).

Like I mentioned above the AI can sometime be a bit dumb and get themselves trapped or stuck but don’t get fooled by this as it will become your grave as several will soon appear behind you as other suppress fire. Vehicles are numerous and each with its own ups and downs. Personally I can drive a jeep pretty damn well but can’t fly for shit (this is noted with my team kills that jumped in my chopper the other day…sorry guys….twice).

The graphics have improved from the original as the years have passed and a lot of the basics such as movements have been polished up and made more fluid than its ridged predecessor. With these new graphical advancement creates a even richer atmosphere you’ll find yourself easily taking and hour plus to do each mission as you slowly creep to place to place and secure the best vantage point.

Co-op mode. This is the game you should be buying it for and they have done some nice things with it. if you don’t all work as a team you are doomed. Simple as that.

Each player has a number of respawns with one character taking the role of the squad leader while the others should obey his commands. If you play it like a military operation you’ll be fine and if you fuck up then the fault will lay on the bad planning of the squad leader. Although if you have friends who like to go in all guns blazing then you are screwed because Codemasters obviously thought about this and more so a way to combat doing just that. There is NO checkpoints or save points in co-op mode. So if you all die then it’s all the way back to the beginning of the mission for you.

Personally I like this but again it’s hard to find friends willing to take the proper time and care to go through missions properly instead of just seeking the action. These people should just wait for early November for COD and leave the war sims to us.

There is some things REALLY dislike about this game. For a start I normally play sniper, I’m patient and like to perch high and far away and wait for the moment to strike and calculate which person I should pick off first and then next three after him. But on single player you can’t do this at all. You always start as the squad leader with the default equipment and have to be the one giving the orders…boring.

So for people like me out there this is what you have to do. Start the mission and then find some bastard with the gun you want and beat him to death and steal his kit. Then and only then can you really think about play the game the way you want to. As much as I’m ok with this at the moment I do believe this is going to be the killer for me. I can’t think of why Codemasters fucked up on this one point that EVERY other games seems to have acknowledged and done.

Yes Yes realism…but really…come on would you rather make a few extra sales or stay real. ACTUALLY if you want realism…I obstruct! I don’t want to be a fucking squad leader…just gimme my .50 cal and leave me the fuck alone on the top of the mountain. How about that for realism. The option to NOT be squad leader.

So this is a basic rant about OF:DR, so far I’ve enjoyed it but as much as it has improved its also come with some flaws and has a long way to go before it’ll compete with the big boys. But for some multiplayer action and realism…I highly recommend it.

Shorthand

Nice realistic style war simulation, great for co-op and multiplayer but best to leave it at that. Won’t be for people looking for an action FPS, Play with your friends or online…

Pros

• +Nice detail and realism
• +Full co-op campaign
• +Some incredible AI moments

Cons

• -No equipment/role selection at mission start
• -Some terrible AI moments
• -Equipment swapping is clunky and slow
• -Only really worth playing the Multiplayer or Co-op

Buy if you like

Bad company, Battlefield 19xx, Operation Flashpoint, Rainbow 6

Rating

6/10

Games you shouldn’t be without this Halloween # Alone In The Dark

Alone in the dark (original)(pc/Abandonware)

I’m not sure and i may be corrected on this later but i do believe Alone In the Dark was the first real survival horror game out there.

This game … gah. I love it. I have so many cherished memories of this title.

Back one i first saw it on a friends machine, him punching the execution text into dos and then it began.

Infograms it said. How i remember the company logo changing into 3d for the first time with the crack of lightning.

The problem with all this, even going back and playing that game less than a week ago. Is …

The graphics are REALLY bad. Almost so bad its hard to get over. Yet if you can get over it be prepared for one of the best Horror games i have the pleasure talking about.

I realised that during my short hand review of Silent hill 2. I don’t like reviewing horror games. I think this is because (i feel ) horror games are special and that if they are overly discussed or drawn out then you lose something, the player shouldn’t be given any hints about the story, or screen shots where you can see the bad guys because is think part of the brain remembers those little things and tries to protect you.

So that when you’re playing the game and suddenly walk down a corridor you’ve seen before you’ll also remember that in the screenshot you saw earlier there was also a monster here…so even now you are prepared although you’ve never played it.

So ok i know it’ll never happen because game sales are made up on marketing and good marketing is displaying ‘whats inside the tin’ with screen shots with dramatic emphasis or peril. Nobody really played Resident Evil the first time and thought i wonder what this game is about. No everyone had the gun prepare from the first time that zombie stood up (in the room next to the big dining room, which is left as you enter the mansion. Yes i remember alot of survival maps in my head).

So i know alot of people have heard about alone in the dark new nightmare, or of the ps3/pc/360  release that was recently released (and butchered and butchered…i hope the people that decided this game is ready to be released are hanged in a slow roasting fire) but forget them. In my opinion they may stil be perfecting the craft of making a new horror title (one that ALAN WAKE has managed to do on the first try it seems…whats you excuse ATARI…. huh …HUH!)

So take these piece of information three.

1)Play this game. there is loads of site to download it for free

2)Try to forget how really bad the graphics are

3) save often…

I mean number three alot. Alone in the dark was one of the first games i can recall to be very ruthless. If you try to be smart or obvious…the game is just going to kill you without thinking twice about it. This can happen as early as the first Three minutes of gameplay making for a very tense atmosphere.

Shorthand

Still one of the best H.P Lovecraft inspired Cthulhu-esc survival horrors out there.

Crap graphics, deadly gameplay…one of my own favourites

Recommendation for gameplay.

Surround sound headphones.

Games you shouldn’t be without this Halloween #3 Silent Hill 2

Silent Hill 2: Directors Cut (ps2) (Konami) (2001)

Why the hell am i even writing this.

If you don’t even have this title, there really isn’t much anyone can do for you.

This game has been reviewed to death and given better justice than i could ever do for it. Skip to the shorthand now…Seriously.

This games start with our heartbroken hero James Sunderland receiving a letter from his wife stating that she is waiting for him…in Silent Hill.

This wouldn’t normally be such a big deal apart from the fact she’s been dead for about 3 years at this point. So our brave (stupid) James Sunderland hops in his car and goes to Silent Hill in search of his ‘wife’.

With the roads being closed James can only get so close in the car before travelling on foot. This is where Silent Hill really shows its merit. It’s not a short trek to Silent Hill from where the car is parked, the game makes you do the entire journey through the woodland filled with eerie sounds baying at your every step and once you reach Silent Hill you really feel the distance you’ve travel and gazing round the desolate town with the telltale fog your only wish is your sudden fear…being alone.

Someone once said Silent Hills greatest trick was being able to tell the tale without words, never has there been a more accurate description.

It’s one of those games i don’t want to write about…because everyone should experience this game. The first sight of pyramid head still makes me smile.

In fact … i will say no more.

Shorthand

If you don’t have this then buy it now.

Recommendations for gaming

Play it yourself and play it alone

District 9

Next up for the review board, is District 9. Now initially, I wasn’t keen on seeing this as from everything I had heard about it, it was just a movie about racism set in South Africa involving aliens. But after realninetails went to see it, and then actually admitted to wanting to go see it again (huge praise there, trust me on this one) I figure I’d give it a shot.

So the basic story goes as follows: Big alien spaceship suddenly appears and floats over Johannesburg, South Africa in 1990 and does nothing. Eventually humans cut through the ship and discover a large number of aliens (referred to as prawns), and promptly rehouse them all into District 9. Twenty years later, District 9 has turned into a slum and the local population no longer want to put up with the prawns. So the MNU (Multi National United) headed up by Wikus, is tasked to evict the prawns to the imaginatively named District 10 (who didn’t see that coming?). During the eviction process, Wikus gets infected by an alien weapon and starts to mutate, gets captured by MNU and then escapes, and befriends one of the aliens.

The racism card does feature, but no where near as heavily as I thought it would, though the irony of seeing loads of black people protesting against the “prawns” and demanding they be moved was amusing to say the least. I suppose the old saying “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is quite well demonstrated as black and white work together to evict the mutually disliked aliens, presumably so they can go back to fighting each other for control of the land, who knows.

For some unexplained reason, the aliens love cat food, to the point where thrown cans of cat food can be used to break up a group of angry aliens, and the aliens even trade their technologically superior weapons for the stuff. Talking about the alien weaponry, which really come to shine in the second half of the movie, I admit to laughing somewhat manically upon seeing some of the weapons in use. They ranged from a gun that shoots a bolt of electricity that causes the target to instantly explode into numerous bloody chunks, to a gun that fires shock waves capable of knocking down walls and flinging humans great distances (which is demonstrated a number of time to hilarious effect), up to robotic suits that can be worn to cause even more carnage and destruction.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable movie that I would happily go and see again. The change in Wikus from proud white man who looks down on the aliens, to one that understands what it’s like to be different and out of place, is well done without being overly forced onto the viewer. The camera work and CGI is stunning, the aliens are very well done, and the alien weaponry is hugely entertaining to watch in action. Go see it!

Games you shouldn’t be without this Halloween #2 Clock Tower 3

Games you shouldn’t be without this Halloween

ClockTower 3(PS2)(Capcom):

Well this is an oldie and seems to be tough one to get your hands on.

To be honest i haven’t dusted this one of the shelves in some time. Its one of those games that is perfect if you have a squeamish friend you can coerce into playing in while you backseat game as the excelling point in the game is the sheer number of boom-mic moments. You character (Standard feel sorry for me 14-year-old girl) in boarding school receives a letter from her mother telling her to hide until her 15^th birthday passes. Of course not listening she decides it would be better for her to go and visit said mother and find out whats going on to find the house empty apart from the dark gentleman.

During each ‘stage’ you are plagued by the Boss characters and take advantage of the boom-mic moments to spring round corners, drop down from the rafters and proceed to chase you. Being a small lithe girl you have a few advantages of crawl under objects or hiding in lockers until they give up chase or look elsewhere.

These bosses can’t be killed until the end of each stage. If memory serves there is 4 of them (i may be wrong as i am writing this purely from memory) each have their own interesting quirks and modus operandi. Some like the corroder is actually based on and named after the real acid bath murderer  (John Haigh).

Also on each level the innocent victims dispatched by these bosses haunt the levels and will attack you if you stray too close to them.

This would also be a good point to mention you don’t get any weapons…yup you heard right nothing…

Ok that’s not ‘exactly’ true once you have solved the puzzles and found the levels sentimental object then and only at this point you are given the tools needed to dispatch the boss that’s been hounding you

Shorthand:

Intense true survival horror, dark nerve-racking atmosphere

Recommend for gaming:

Get a cowardly friend to play this in the dark…they wont sleep for a few nights. Afterwards get a gasmask and a shower hose (you’ll soon understand why and it’s not for cleaning up the mess)

Games you shouldn’t be without this Halloween #1 Fatal Frame / Project ZeroGame

Fatal Frame / Project Zero:

Fatal Frame(ps2), Fatal Frame 2 (ps2)/ (xbox), Fatal Frame 3(ps2)(with progressive scan)

I’ve always ranked Fatal Frame or Project Zero as its known in the UK as one of my all time favourite horror games of all time. Simply thinking about the game makes me want to go home, shut the curtains and play through them all again. Unfortunately i have never finished the 3rd of the series (nor have i played the 4^th which was released in 2008 on the wii) but i have so many fond memories of the first two.

The Fatal Frame games have always been fantastic at creating an atmosphere of uncertainty where you never feel quite safe even though you may have been in the same room a hundred time or feeling like things are always waiting round the next corner or creeping in from the shadows. I believe this was a major factor in the games success as you soon realise that the only time you’ll ever be safe is when the credits role.

You control various characters (usually a young female) in a beautiful ancient Japanese setting, very soon into each game you come across the ‘camera obscura’ this is a old fashioned camera and your only tool against the ghost that will come out of the ceilings, floors even walls and in order to banish them you have to take their picture. Sounds weird but its executed magnificently. As you walk around solving the many puzzles the game has to offer you perceptions is that of the standard over the shoulder or fixed camera found in almost all action horror games although when you have to dispatch a ghost you enter first person mode as in viewing down the camera lens, movement becomes more restricted and the surround sound becomes you ears as you turn from side to side wondering which way the spectre will come.

On top of these moments the are countless other occasions when a spectre will walk about in the background, turn round a corner or enter a room as you enter a room these spectres cause no harm but are purely there for flavour (or sometimes a subtle hint) and to keep you on the very edge of your seat with suspense and curiosity.

Personally i recommend Fatal Frame 2 crimson butterflies as this keeps you gripped from the start whereas fatal frame 3 will take some time before everything really kicked off. Beware of the ghost that will kill you if they touch you. Thats right not only are you going to have to know which spectre you can banish and which one you need to run from and hide.

Shorthand

Japanese setting horror with perfect mix of puzzle and mystery.

Recommendation for gaming

Always a classic for me is to darken the room as much as possible, crank up the surround sound and have a candle flickering nearby to tease you with shadows.

Also a spare pair of pants

Fame (2009)

So let’s get this film reviewing business underway. First up is the remake of Fame (updated for 2009 but based off the 1980s movie). Now I have seen the musical Fame before, but because it was a number of years ago and I don’t remember it very well, for the purposes of this review I’m not going to make any comparisions between the film version and the stage version.

The plot of the film boils down to a focus on a number of different students at the prestigious New York High school for the Performing Arts (referred to as PA throughout most of the film) from their auditions, where their numbers are reduced from over ten thousand applicants down to a select two hundred, up to their graduation at the end of senior year. The characters are your expected mix of privileged and under-privileged students from all sorts of backgrounds, with the usual emotional issues and teenage angst you would expect from high school students. To be honest, the characters are pretty sterotypical, and once introduced as the stuck up one, or the quiet/shy one etc, there’s little in the way of character development. Of course, there’s the obligatory life lessons along the way such as the aspiring film director who gets ripped off to the tune of $5000 by a dodgy film producer, or the ballet dancer who is told that he’ll never be good enough professionally and then goes on to try and kill himself, etc etc.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s obvious that some of the characters have talent, with some great examples of dancing and singing throughout the film. There were a couple of particularly noteworthy scenes that stayed with me, such as the “Carn Evil” (Get it? A play on Carnival? Yeah, side splitting humour I’m sure) halloween party, and also the impromptu jam session set in the cafeteria shortly after the freshman year has started. A student hooks up an electro drum pad to a dusty old amp, and gradually the other students join in and it ends up involving violins, electric guitars, a drum kit, dancing across the tables, some impressive vocals and a bit of a rap battle, culminating in almost the entire cafeteria being involved. It looked like it would have been great fun to film, and indeed, was really enjoyable to watch. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the rest of the film.

I didn’t go into this film with high expectations, so I wasn’t overly disappointed. It wasn’t a bad watch, and the two scenes I mentioned were really quite enjoyable, but overall, it’s a film I’ll only go and see the once. Though if some misguided friend or relative buys it for me on DVD, those couple of scenes will likely be the only use it would get.

Halloween’s a coming…

With Halloween only a few short days away i thought it would be good to do a bit of a right up on my favourite genre….Horror.

There are people that exist and can write the most beautiful of stories whether it be bad or good, filled with laughs and joy or heartbreak and sorrow they find their medium in printed text and/or script. Then there are people who can tell a tale and can give life to it through spoken word or even sometimes with the simplest of gesture, body language or tone.

These are the people you sit around and listen to as they hold your ear and bend it to their word. Woven so true that to simply close your eye’s is to have a picture is painted to such vivid detail that you can do more than just imagine it all. You feel it too.

With this in mind i often wonder if this ever gets out of sync in the games we see today for example you can have a role play game with bad acting but an amazing story; but not without one. Likewise you can have a great survival horror without much aid of a story (ala Left 4 Dead) but as long as you can emote with the characters you’ll be immersed into the madness and fear deeper than ever before but if you hate the characters you don’t really feel the urge to keep the meat sack alive at all.

When i use the term survival horror its important to note that i believe we have come to an age where this has now been split in two. This is not a bad thing but simply something that we should bare in mind. I believe the two can be labelled as thus.

True survival horror being the likes of Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising wherein the story may be flaky to almost non-existent and it works simply because you are there to SURVIVE.

NOT run around looking for playing card shaped keys in a fucked up mansion H.R Giger would be proud to call home. No, Things are out to get you and want your brains. No if’s buts or maybes about it. you kill it and two more will be quick to take its place, get stuck in a corner and well… you might as well take that bullet and place it to your temple and pull the trigger because only certain death awaits. This is ‘the fear’…the true horror you should experience in a horror game.The one the has all the hair on your neck raised and a chill run through you even on the hottest of days. That is survival horror and true to its name.

The other is Action Horror.

This is the one we all know and love to play with great franchises like the well established resident evil and ever eerie silent hill. As much as i love these games and will normally be found in the queue with a ear to ear grin on day release i don’t believe these are what should be called ‘survival horror’ as they specialise in creating a wondrous dread while the main character/s are normally still tooled up to the eyeballs with various high grade weaponry that you are unlikely to find even in the darkest places of Peckham or doped up after munching one too many special coloured herbs (unfortunately this part is common in Peckham). See  a big part of this is these characters are not joe blogs…they’re heroes. you share in their horrors and success with a differant frame of mind because these guys are suppost to win.

The game knows this and so do you so instead of piling on a seemingly infinate horde of enemies it concentrates on the subtleties for instance without mentioning too much most people will remember picking up a certain health canister in a police interagation room only to have the deranged offspring between Einstein’s dog and the lead from KISS burst through the one way mirror.

This unfortunately almost cost one of my friends an eye as i promptly soiled myself while the control pad decided to it would be better suited smashed against the wall via my friends head as my hands flinched in a T-Rex equvelant of a mexican wave without first consulting his brain.

This is unfortunately something i find predictably irritating about the action horror genre. Instead of feeling the constant nightmare creeping in from every shadow you’re left gazing at fixed camera angles highlighting obscures objects or windows that will either shatter as zombies attempt to gain entry or glint with obvious abandonment (even if there is no light source to cause the Glimmer in the first place, which should indicate its either demonic, unholy or downright wrong and should be burned at the first sight and without a seconds thought) but collecting this will only lead to something more nasty jumping out at you at the next turn. I call these boom-mic moments as you find these primarily in a slasher horror film with something springing up infront of the screen going oogie boogie and scaring the viewers.

These moments are great for an instant fright and even betterfor watching other people playing the same section at a later date as you watch with impending glee at their reactions (and attempt to duck the volatile launch of a control pad) but the drawn back is you will be spending the whole game worrying about the next big fright or boom-mic moment instead of being left in a state where you want to save because you’re too scared to go on (but too manly to admit it) and think it would be much better suited to proceed further when the sun has come back up.

So lets go back to ‘true survival horror’, why isn’t there more of these today. Funnily enough Left 4 Dead seems to be the only one that really hit the mainstream, Dead Rising did ok but only as more of a launch title (the surviving hero is now due to feature in a well known beat em up next to megaman amongst others) unfortunately there was many things that simply made this game unbearable after awhile, ridged trigger events and long boss battles i have a few bug bears with this game but im not here to cast my review on it but i do hope that with the sequel they will have spent alot more time on getting the balance and modes just right.

Another classic that can’t go unmentioned is of course…Clocktower 3 on the ps2 featuring no (major) weapons, no martial arts action just lots of survival elements although this game does suffer from almost constant boom-mic moments. These come in waves as the enemies come at you by springing round corners or dropping down from the rafters and then proceeding to give chase and hunt you.

You however; being made of nothing special enter a panicked state with the controls become unruly and you know you have to SURVIVE by either running to a safe spot or hiding in a locker like a crap one-eyed secret agent pray that the big bugger with the hammer isn’t going to find you.

So whether you passion is Action or True survival horror i think its that special time of the year where we should all dust of those classics sitting on our shelf and enter the madness once more.

My aim before all hallows eve decents apon us is to list some of my personal favorites should you look for something differant to try or simply reminisce.

Till then.

October Wish List

Here is the up and coming titles in October I’d love to get my paws on:

Xbox360:

9/10
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising

23/10
Borderlands
Dragon Ball: Raging Blast
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010

30/10
DJ Hero
Tekken 6

PS3:

16/10
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves