Belated Games Season: Far Cry 4

   Well, that took a long time. Still, Christmas and all that got in the way and I kept getting distracted by side missions, Worms and a bunch of films, but I've finished it now, just a mere 2 months after it's release. Wow, I'm good at doing reviews in a timely manner (sarcasm).
  A brief history of the Far Cry game series and me, Far Cry 4 obviously being the next in this series, which  really hooked me with number 3. I never played 1, but I did play 2, and I didn't like it. The guard posts at basically every road junction really annoyed me an I kept catching Malaria so I wasn't going to play number 3, despite how much one of my friends kept talking it up to me. Then, It came free on PS Plus (a service I only got to get a nice Vita library (a console which I used probably a dozen times, put it aside for about 6 months, then, when about to leave on holiday started it up to install the couple of games I'd bought especially to play on the plane and the screen was bust. Oh well, £120 well spent) but a service that helped me play the likes of Far Cry 3 and Metro last light (which I wouldn't have given a chance otherwise)) and I played it, and I loved it. The great open world with so much to do, enemy bases to conquer, a fun story, random animal attacks and of course, great gameplay (gamplay is King after all). Fast forward a year and a half (based on when I played 3, not on when it came out) and Far Cry 4 hit the shelves and I couldn't wait. Reviews by real reviewers said it was more of the same but why fix what isn't broken?
   So, what wild opinion do I bring to the table? I'd say that yeah, it is more of the same, Far Cry 3 was excellent. It's added on to that game, but in the 2 year gap with the likes of GTA V redefining open world gaming (perhaps a harsh comparison as that was developed for around 3 times longer) and the leap to a next generation of hardware I'd say ultimately it's a bit of a let down. That is not to say It's bad by any stretch of the imagination. Far Cry 3 would have been a 10 from me (had I been doing this then) so it already had pretty high expectations from myself. It's hard to really expand upon the point that it's a just a new coat of paint on the old game but I'll try.

   That picture definitely brings up a major positive. Elephants are bad ass. Whether you're riding it or sending it in to attack on your behalf, nothing is more effective than an elephant, and it's great fun too charging through enemy strongholds, wiping out enemies that stand in your way whilst picking off the ones hiding behind cover with my trusty grenade launcher. Speaking of weapons I definitely took a different approach to this game, weapon-wise than to how I approached number 3. In 3 I used the bow all the time, and only as a very, very last resort would I change it. This time, did I have my bow in my regular load out? Sure, but I was happy to change as soon as I'd inevitably been spotted and had to start shot-gunning people in the face (I'm not sure why I didn't do this in 3 as it was a lot easier). Don't forget luring wild animals in to enemy outposts with bait too. Why attack yourself when you can let a Tiger do the work?
   Speaking of Tigers, there's a nice variety of side missions here, from stealth missions in the Himalayas (though they never ended stealthily when I was playing them) to drug filled dreams/nightmares and on to stories about heaven (this is where the tiger comes in). Welcome to Shangri-la (urgh, how cheesy), where you fight off demons to ring bells to remove a big bird (not the one from sesame street) with the help of some White-Ranger tiger power (A white tiger (but that wouldn't have been as funny)) At first, I wasn't a fan of the Shangri-la missions, in fact, I hated the second one, but I thought I'd give the 3rd a go, and low and behold, Elephants! Then the final one gave you the only true boss battle of the game (and it was good too).
   There's a good story in here too, with you ultimately having to decide the fate of the country in a tradition v revolution face off between rival group leaders Sabal and Amita. Your father and mother came from Kyrat (where the game is set, you see) and helped build the Golden path, and, assuming you don't finish the game in 13 minutes, a very interesting tale about your parents unfolds involving Amita, Sabal, the Golden Path and Pagan-Min (the antagonist). I wont ruin it for you but it's worth sticking around for.

   So, speaking of (and visualising) Pagan-Min, as you may well have heard, he's just not in it enough. He's a very interesting character (insert Troy Baker comment here) but just isn't involved that much apart from the opening and closing scenes of the game, which ultimately made the ending feel a little hollow to me as it revolves around him so much.
   There are some minor gripes I have too, such as being attacked by wild animals when trying to stealth in to an area and giving your position away is annoying, as is being spotted by and enemy vehicle then being chased for miles while all you were trying to do was drive to a mission start point as well as your vehicle disappearing after you've parked it when you have gone into a cut scene. News flash Ubisoft, I still need to get to where you're telling me to go.
   But the ultimate failing of the game is repetition. Not just from Far Cry 3 but from itself. The main reason the game took me so long to finish is that the middle act dragged so much because (even though the story was still interesting) all the missions were basically the same. Go to location x, and kill all the enemies. When I started the game I was flying through, I probably put in 10 hours in the first week (a lot for me due to my work hours and other commitments (TV)) and was completing all the side mission in the area and flying through the progress ranks. Now here I am 6 weeks later, game completed with 20 hours put in. It's sad to say but it becomes such a drag in the middle that I couldn't motivate myself to play it. Sure, the game still plays well, but, as with most fps' it can get so samey that I lose interest.

   This all seems a bit mean to me now that I've wrote it because the beginning was great, and it really picked up again at the end. The gameplay is great and it's made some improvements over 3 (though there should have been more). It's a tough one to give a score to because I know it's good but it could have been so much more. Let's say 8/10.
BTW, I didn't play the multiplayer

   A 2014 year in review and game of the year are on their way so stay tuned for that (though don't sit staring at your monitors pressing refresh cause you'll be doing it for a while (actually, do that because it will make it look like I've got loads of viewers so I can put some ads on here and get some bonus cash)). I'm just waiting for Smash Bros. to arrive as it's the only really important game left of 2014 that I feel I need to play to make judgements (he says looking at Borderlands and Wolfenstein in his drawer). Until then x.

Games Season: WWE 2K15

   The WWE games have always been pretty samey with the in ring action and the fun has always been in all the editing and options but this time around they've reversed it (somewhat).
   Okay, so as with every year it's a wrestling game that's built around creating your own content and battling it out in the ring. The usual universe mode is in there as well as exhibition and online with new additions of '2k showcase' (which is historical feuds (well 2 of them, with more coming as DLC)) and career, which is more like the story modes that used to be in the game years ago.
   The in ring work has defiantly been improved, with stamina a big factor, meaning you're often crawling to the ropes to drag yourself back to your feet or reaching an arm out for a desperation cover. There's more OMG moments than ever and no longer do opponents just get up after a few seconds from the big moves, if they're hit hard, they're staying down for a good while (though this can lead to easy count out victories). The one issue I do have is the tie ups at the start of a match which take form of a rock paper scissors mini game then a thumb stick rotating mini game and gets tedious after the first couple of times, but you go through it in every singles match. Still though, they've ultimately made the wrestling better than for a long time, although they've not exactly reinvented the wheel.

   So, the game modes. The 2k showcase is pretty good, though is just another way of doing the attitude era and history of Wrestlemania modes from the last couple of games. You get some nice history of the feuds (CM Punk vs. John Cena and Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels) with the pre PPV match hype videos being shown and match objectives to try and repeat from what happened in order to unlock more stuff. Career mode is pretty disappointing though in that you can't change the difficulty. In 2K showcase you can change the difficulty so coupling the hardest difficulty setting along with trying to hit all the match objectives can actually be quite challenging. In Career mode though, you're stuck on normal, and after the first 10 or 15 matches once you've boosted your stats enough so that your guy isn't out of stamina after 2 moves then it gets far too easy. It's straight up not fun to play because it's so easy and you can zone out to it. Also, it takes forever, it took me over 7 hours to get to being on Smackdown and after a few more I'm still not on Raw or even at a mention of getting a shot at the title.
   Online causes some problems too where you can't search for matches like you used to be able to and would make sense but you have a background search on that connects you to any random match (despite me setting that I didn't want any 1 on 1 matches, yet still that's all I seemed to get put in to) and there's still lag, a problem that has plagued this game series ever since it got online capabilities, which is crazy 'cause it seems like the perfect game to play online. Universe mode is basically the same as before as is exhibition.
   The problems then. The roster has been slimmed back, and though I personally appreciate the NXT guys being in it, I'd imagine that more players would prefer the types of extras they had in the last couple of years from the annals of Wrestlemania or the attitude era, they don't even have some of the current main roster (though not the biggest names but still show up a fair bit) like Zack Ryder. Some of the models are terrible (as ever) and (also as ever) the characters are very outdated. The Shield broke up in May, right? The game didn't come out for another 6 months but those characters are still in shield attire, group, entrance theme, move set, commentary lines and everything. Maybe it's just me but I feel if sports games like FIFA can update players clubs and stats weekly based on performance (and even create new players if a youngster has broke though or has been signed from a club not in the game) all for free, maybe Yukes could do a couple of updates with at least attire, music and videos changed, even if they can't change the commentary lines or create new move sets. (after all, who listens to the commentary anyway, and you can change the move sets yourself).
   The match creation modes have been trimmed too. A couple of years ago a great idea was implemented in to this series by having basic matches to choose from and then loads of options to modify from there on to make whatever match you want, whether it be ever likely to happen or not. This has gone now and we are back to what we had before with more rigid match options and no room to modify them.

      The biggest problem of all is the create a wrestler. Yukes have always strived to add more and more content every year to the CAW mode, but they appear to have gone backwards this year. Many clothing, hair, face and other options are out as well as classic wrestler entrances to choose from, create a finisher and create an entrance video. To no fault of their own as well you can no longer upload your own songs for entrance themes, so they could have at least added a wider selection of choices rather than just generic ones that someone has sat at a computer for 5 minutes making. This has always been one of, if not the strongest staples of the WWE game series but it's suddenly been stripped down.
   Talking of music the menu has become boring. Maybe I'm the only person sad enough to want entrance themes in the menu, but last year another good feature was added (that has also been taken away this year) where you could turn on and off which themes you wanted in the menus and create your own play list. This year we've been stuck with a soundtrack of music that John Cena (yes, that John Cena) himself chose to curse us all with. It didn't take me 2 minutes to turn them all off so now I have silent menus.
   So, the game may have improved in the ring, but all the creative things that had made it fun in the past have gone, and they've not made any big leaps forward with online or graphics for their big release on the next gen systems (or are the current gen by this point? It has been a year after all). That's why this is going to have to get a 5/10. Must do better. Finally now I can get to the game I've been waiting for! O

Games Season: Costume quest 2

   So, during my wait for the the games coming out this week (Sonic Boom etc.) I thought I'd play some Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Turns out it doesn't work properly (at least not yet) so I didn't bother buying that one. Anyway, I'd heard some great things about the first Costume Quest and with it's sequel out only a couple weeks ago, (on console anyway) I thought I'd give it a go.
   It's a light RPG game that in many ways reminds me of South Park: the stick of Truth in so much as it's mostly free roaming and there are lots of puzzles to solve outside of battles (of course, it's not as funny or offencive as South Park). The good news here is that you can all play it as it's landed on last gen, current gen and PC, so if you wanted it you could get it. The bad news is, the combat is boring.
   Let's start positive though, and you drop straight in to a weird and fun menu at the start and begin your crazy journey through time to stop the evil dentist from stopping Halloween 'cause sweets = bad teeth. I won't ruin any more of the story because it's easily the best part of the game, it doesn't take itself too seriously but really makes the characters dread of 'the end of Halloween' come across so well that I began to wonder if this is what American children really think of it. I hope not (actually, I don't care).
   Lots of the game involves trick or treating to collect 'candy' to get other characters to do things for you as well as you having to do what at first seem like side missions, but turn out to be story integral. It's a nice way to give you something different to do, after all, who wouldn't want to perform in a jazz band with a clown horn.
   The name of the game and what I've mentioned about Halloween implies it already, but the game is all about collecting new costumes that have both in and out of battle uses. Outside of battle many have special abilities (e.g the pterodactyl costume lets you blow away piles of leaves) that help you both advance the story and go back and get hidden collectibles that you couldn't get to before. See, the whole world is open to you once you've unlocked all the areas, it can just be a pain getting around because the map system isn't great (you have to buy them from some dodgy guy selling cards from his long jacket to kids in exchange for sweets (hmm...)) and then they don't show you where you are on it, so you have to figure that out, which can be a pain when you're running around trying to match your location to the map then run in to an enemy and have to battle him which is an issue because...

   It's too simple. There's 1 attack choice and a special move that you build up towards by nailing your attacks and blocks. That element of timing your attacks, blocks and counters do add something a bit extra but it's easy to get them dead on anyway. If anything it was more annoying because I kept miss timing them whilst trying to have a drink of tea!) The other options are 'run' (you can figure that one out)' or using a 'creepy treat card', which are cards you collect throughout the game that give you boosts during battle, 3 of which you can have active at one time, and hence select in battle. Thing is with those, you don't need them, I think i used 2 throughout the game, and the first time was just to see what the deal was with them.
   There is an attempt to add extra depth to the battle by having slightly different types of monster that are stronger/weaker against different costumes, but you can't tell what enemies you'll be facing when you start a battle (apart from which general group they'll be from) and so can't adjust accordingly, and there's no way to swap your costumes mid battle to change it, so that seems mostly pointless to me. There are certain costumes that make your special heal your cohorts instead of them being an attack, but if you need to do any mid battle healing you're playing it wrong anyway (the battle AI is pretty bad). While I'm being negative I just also want to add that the post game is disappointing as you get to walk around your neighbourhood seeing how you've change time and made everything better, but I had some unfinished side quests I wanted to go back and do, but Couldn't, which annoyed me.
   Off my high horse now and try to be more positive again. It has a fun cell shaded visual style (as seen above) and seeing the transformation of kids in costumes to full fledged versions of what they're representing is fun (especially the hot dog which becomes some weird 3 headed (hot)Dog (additionally, the werewolf does the thriller dance for victory)).
   To summarise then, Costume Quest 2 is a small RPG with a fun story, imaginative quests and some good lighthearted humour, but with such a tedious battle system that from about halfway through the game I did everything I could to avoid getting in to them. Unfortunately, this is a major part of this type of game, just think Pokemon or South Park (or your turn based RPG game of choice) and remember that you enjoyed the combat and that it wasn't a drag, like it is here.

5/10

Games Season: Sunset Overdrive

   A new Xbox franchise that I had high hopes for arrived, a game about the Apocalypse, fun and jokes, but how has this come together?
  An introduction then; it's the apocalypse in Sunset City and the new energy drink, Overcharge XD (not sure why the drink is called Overcharge but the game Overdrive) has some problems where it turns all of its drinkers in to mutants known as the OD (overdosed I assume). Your job is to get out of the city and warn the rest of the world what happened before it's too late, but of course it's not that easy as the evil Fizco (makers of Overcharge) need to keep it a secret.
   The game is essentially a third person shooter but with an interesting movement mechanic where you need to bounce, wall run and glide on edges to get around. If you run on the floor it will be slow and you will die (there's enemies everywhere at all times). This would be a good point to mention that it's a free roam game so you can just travel around, picking up collectibles and doing challenges and so on if you desire and the movement is by far the best part of the game.
   Another great part is the character customisation. There's plenty of options of what you want to look like (man or woman) and clothing options and loads more items of attire to unlock throughout the story and side missions. This is probably the best create a character model I've ever seen outside of a WWE game and it makes it feel like you have more control over the game as the hero of the hour looks how you want them to.

   There are problems though and unfortunately the shooting is one of them, I'll put it simply, it's repetitive. There are 3 enemy classes (OD, scabs (humans taking advantage of the situation) and Fizco bots, and there's loads of weapons, but it's just a case of figuring out which weapon suits which enemy best, then just shooting them. That's pretty much it for every mission in the game, travel to an area and kill some bad guys. The weapons aren't as exciting as they were promised either (the nuclear sword is frustratingly taken away from you nearly as soon as you get it), even though they have fun names and sparkly colours they're nothing new. Towards the end of the game I found myself using my jumping melee attack to kill everything as it was my powerful, and fun attack (as if I timed it right I could leap back high in the air after (but annoyingly couldn't do another melee attack from the resulting drop (to be fair though, this would've made the game really easy))).
   Speaking of such things, the upgrades system. Now, there's loads to upgrade, stat boosts, weapon add ons and etc. but they don't really seem to make a difference. Granted, occasionally some of my enemies would turn to ice due to one of my weapon 'amps' but not enough that I couldn't have done without it (BTW, the way they go on at you about 'amps' at the start of the game, it's like they're trying to hook you on drugs) and the grim reaper assistant seems to do all his assisting in the form of standing cutting in to empty space while all the enemies run straight past him (the king of darkness indeed...)!
   Lets talk the comedy now, which was made a big deal of in the build up to the game. The problem is, it's very hit and miss, it can be genuinely funny at times, but more of the time it's bad, using tired cliches and bad puns. There is some reference comedy in there (which I normally love) but they only take it as far as shoving famous lines in to the script without it sounding natural at all (maybe someone at Insomniac should watch Spaced). To be fair though, the re spawn animations are fun (I like the Portal and Dr. Who ones especially).

   Credit to how the game looks though, which is great, the city is bright and colourful and designed really well with all the movement options so you never really have to touch the floor (except for getting mission and etc.). There's also plenty of fast travel points around so you're never spending 5 minutes getting to the start of a mission.
   As far as the start of a game series goes, it's worrying. It's got some great ideas and everything around it is great, but unfortunately the key element of the game, the thing you do in every mission again and again is dull. They have got to work on this for next time because I won't be able to go mindlessly through another one of these, getting more excited about what clothes I've unlocked than actually playing the game. Also, they should hire a comedy writer.

6/10

Games Season: Forza Horizon 2

   It's been a while since I played a racing game, and even longer since I really got in to one, probably PGR4, which apparently I last played in 2009. This however has taken over that mantle and even though I've now finished the main game, there's still more to do and I'm definitely going to go back and do at least some of it.
   It's an open world racer (I remember Test Drive unlimited doing this first (badly)) which means you can drive around, seeing sights, doing side mission (side races I guess really) and generally messing about. It's set in a fictional section of Europe involving France and Italy, which does add to the nice look of things too. There are a lot of tournaments though. There are 6 locations you go around to do the races in, with 9 main car categories and 26 (I think) sub categories of car. That means there's 26 tournaments of 4 races each in 6 locations making some 624 tournaments races in total. And to finish the main story you only have to do 60 races (as well as a huge 20 minute final) which leaves me with a further 524 tournament races yet! So, that's why I'll go back and do some of it, but I can't imagine I'll be doing all of it.
   How does it play then? It's definitely an arcade racer over a sim and it has lots of fun off roading and none of the courses are crazy difficult (It can get tough during the rain mind you). You get xp for skills like drifting, drafting, over taking, jumps and loads of other stuff, which combine to help you unlock perks like cheaper cars from the showroom and more xp per skill. There is a further xp gained from winning races and such that gives you a chance at a 'wheelspin' (I see what they did there) much like Wheel of fortune but instead of real, tangible prizes you get in game credits and cars. It's a fun way of getting rewards and you can pretend you're on a TV quiz show while it's happening.

   The AI cars are interesting as they are done from 'driveatars' (I see what they did there also) which are based on what other players of the game did in the same races and free roam situations, or so they say... Right, so it's a great theory, but either I'm the only guy in the world who plays racing games like a mentalist, overtaking other cars by ramming them in to walls, cutting all the corners and so on, or they are highly modified from what other people have actually done. I'd be tempted to say that they merely don't use the data from people who play like me but I keep getting free credits from where my Driveatar finishes in other peoples races, so that Can't be true (also, most people online seem to drive like me, but more on that later).
   Now, car selection. I always compare car selection in games to that of gran Turismo 1 and 2, due to the fact that at the time they were released they were both revolutionary and I was really in to cars (despite being about 10). We all know GT is famous for having a load of cars and FH2 (Forza Horizon 2) has something like 170 (with more available through DLC (which, BTW they are pushing so heavily that you'd think this was a free to play game where they had to sell DLC to make money (It isn't))) which isn't bad at all, especially when you can tune your cars and put on liveries of your own designs, from simple paint to insane designs which you could spend hours on. You can then upload these designs to the world for other people to use themselves on their own cars as well as showing up on the driveatar of the person in question. Now, no question this is great for people with creative minds of lots of time on their hands but I just can't be bothered. On top of this the cars are obviously split in to sub categories that each tournament involves, and even though some tournaments will give you the choice of 20+ cars, there are some which only have 3 or 4 cars to choose from and you have to think maybe they could have combined a few of these categories to give a wider array of cars in them and cut down a few of the crazy amount of tournaments at least.
   Speaking of GT1 and GT2 there are plenty of cars for me to enjoy based on that, especially in the 90's rally section where you can get mid 90's Imprezas, Lancers and Deltas as well as the likes of Skylines and Minis (there are loads more but I can't think of off the top of my head). Unfortunately though the car that I found the coolest in my childhood, the Ferrari F40 is disappointingly slow and barely makes 150mph (I guess I'm not getting those in game credits back).
   There are other things besides tournaments, like barn finds where you can find 10 beaten up wrecks in barns and get them restored and add them to your garage; speciality story events like racing against cargo plains, the stupidly named 'Bucket list' where you do 'dream' car things like drive a McLaren F1 really fast and other smaller things such as xp boards and speed traps which are all nice things to mix it up a bit from just the tournaments. Then there's online.

An example of the bizarre livery designs people will spend hours making

   Online seems okay in theory, obviously people online are a lot more challenging to race against and there are some neat road trip based concept races and mini games like Virus mode (Timesplitters fans rejoice, it's the same thing). There are problems though. I got quite a lot of lag and the cars do not match up great. There are 6 categories of car in the game (performance wise) you see, D,C.B.A.S1,S2. Each has a rating system and as with all things online people have the highest possible performance setting for each tournament, something I didn't appreciate, so my car somewhere in the mid A range got slaughtered but the opposition which were all inches away from being S1. It's not that I have a problem with this, it just seems like you really have to commit to playing online by spending loads of credits on the right upgrades for the right cars. I'll just stick to single player then I guess, though I can appreciate what the online has to offer for dedicated players.
   There are a few issues mind you. of the 26 categories of car, 5 of them are muscle cars, which we all know suck. Also, the host of this tournament and guy that holds the loose story together is the epitome of the word 'douchebag'. Add to this the typical in game boring radio stations (with no funny adds either!) and somewhat annoying menus and there are some minor frustrations in it.
   Overall though, it is a fantastic racing game that may well replace my use of FIFA as a game on the side to play when I want a break from whatever game I'm actually playing. I'm not the racing genre's biggest fan though and there always seems like there's something missing for me in a racing game and that I want to do more. Maybe shoot someone, have a cool story, be able to punch someone off their bike or have a bit of humour in it. I'm not saying I can't appreciate how good the racing is, but I'm going to have to give in an 8/10.

Games Season: Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

   A lord of the rings game? Isn't that out about 10 years too late? I mean, there's the Hobbit films but does anyone care anywhere near as much for them as they did for the original trilogy? It's got Tim from the Office sure, but it's also a highly stretched out story based on a franchise that was hot the aforementioned 10 years ago. Maybe had they made 1 Hobbit film the year after the LOTR trilogy finished then it could've been successful but surely they've left it too late now? Sure, I've seen both of them but they were pretty meh, I wouldn't have missed much had I not seen them. Also, the dragon had a stupid voice.
   That's what I thought when I heard of a LOTR based game coming out, but to be fair to it, not only are the Middle-Earthy bits of it pretty light (only really showing Gollum and the creation of the rings of power) but the game is also amazing. This will be quite tough for me obviously as I clearly much prefer to criticise and pick holes in things rather than praise them, but I'm gonna go for it anyway.
   It's kind of a cross between Assassin's Creed and the Arkham series but with more gore. It has great but simple combat mechanics and some good stealth too. There's plenty of (actually fun) side quests all of which can help make the main story easier not just by helping you gain more xp and hence more abilities but also taking out captains.
   So, what's a captain? Basically, each Uruk (more bad ass than regular orks apparently) unit is lead by a captain which is in a chain of command upwards right up to the war chiefs. Wipe out or control more captains and the war chiefs will be easier to take down as they will have less protection. It's not as complex as I may have made it sound but it's certainly something new. This adds a nice extra element to the game and more to do on the side than just regular side missions, which are fun anyway. There's 4 types of side mission, 1 relating to all your weapons, sword (melee), dagger (stealth) and crossbow (ranged) as well as slave freeing missions which are more of a choice of doing it your own way. What's more, I finished them all! I can't remember the last game I played where I finished all the side missions. There are also hunting and herb collecting side missions (which I didn't finish, after all, where the hell do your find a dire Caragor?) that help you boost your stats.
 

   As far as the main missions go there tends to be many ways to complete them without forcing you down any one path, which is always nice. For instance, attacking a base? Why not sneak around, take them all out one by one? Or you could let free some Caragors, brutalise some enemies and drop some flies then mop up the left overs. You could stand afar and take them out with the bow. Try going all swords blazing and chop those mothers to oblivion. Try branding (mind controlling) all the archers an let them loose to do most, if not all of the work for you. These are just some options (my preferred methods) but there are more to pick from. It's a game with a lot of choice and everything to do with it is fun and you get a nice sense of accomplishment when a mission goes exactly how you wanted it to. I love it when a plan comes together.
   Of course, as you level up, the powers become great for chopping through the hordes or sneaking around or whatever. The melee combat becomes easier and cooler, though it was always pretty satisfying anyway, countering,  slicing and chopping through, but when you're executing, blasting away, and taking over minds every few strikes it becomes a blast. They also help with the stealth, with abilities such as the afformentioned branding and going invisible making you even better than before.
   Now, time for my favourite bit, the negatives! Sometimes, stealth can be a bit dodgy. Most of the time as long as you're holding the crouch button you can walk right past an enemy without being spotted. Yet, using a shadow strike kill (sort of a teleport forward kill) always gets you spotted despite enemies not looking your way. There's also the question of Gollum (who always annoyed me in the films anyway) and what he is actually doing in the game as it's hinted that he'll be a large part of the game, but he isn't. The biggest tragedy of all though is the final 2 bosses which are so easy it's farcical. Additionally, the big twist at the end is kind of strange and Torvin (you) gets upset about something that I'm pretty sure no one that really exists would. These are not major issues though (well, the final boss thing kind of leaves a bitter taste in your mouth at the end but try and remember the good times, yeah?) and the game is still fantastic.

   It almost seems pointless now to say how good the game looks, maybe I should just point out when a game looks bad from now on. So, if you have ever liked the Assassin's creed series and/or the Arkham series (seems like everyone does the latter) plus loads of gore then, as a famous man once said; 'this is for you'.It may seem harsh comparing this to two other games rather than letting it stand alone, but it takes the best elements from both, adds some of it's own stuff and blends them together to make a stand out game. This is the one to beat so far this 'games season' 9/10.

Games Season: FIFA 15

   Or should that be IFAF 15? It should be England but that's a debate for another time. The latest installation of the EA sports giant hit the stores last week with it's crisper than ever graphics and Lionel Messi's face all up in your own, but the ultimate question is what changes have they made this year and how do they improve it? If I had to give a one word review it would be 'Dissapointing', 3 words 'A step backwards'. You can see where this is likely to go.
   There are 3 major things that are notable to me that have been changed (in the gameplay) this year. First is the most talked about; improved goalkeepers. Sure, this is great, it makes it harder to score and in online play makes for lower scoring games. However, offline against the AI it proves to be a nightmare. The opposition goalkeeper will pull off string of spectacular saves and prove unbeatable whereas your own 'man between the sticks' will concede about 2/3 of the shots against him. This, as you can imagine is infuriating. I'm well aware that football games down the years have made difficulties harder by seemingly just make it so that nearly every time the AI has a shot, they score, but never has it been made so hard to score yourself. I often wound up having 3 or 4 times as many shots as the AI opposition would against me in career mode and yet still wind up on the losing side due to this.
   Number 2 is the passing. What has happened here? It seems that about 1/4 passes just decide to go wherever the hell they want by their selves. Maybe this is a problem that only I seem to be finding, but it is so annoying. You've built a nice move forward, you're one pass away from playing in the breakaway attacker and oh, it goes to the right back. Or you're bringing it out of defence (not clearing it mind you, you're not Sam Allardyce), you try to play it across to the centre mid in acres, but instead it goes to your centre half, who has an opposition striker standing in front of him and all of a sudden you've given a goal away. This isn't the only problem with the passing though. They've also done what I like to think of as 'the PES trick' where they have simulated more difficulty when you start the new instalment by changing pass powers so now you have to hold the pass button down much longer than you would have in last years to make the same pass. It just seems like they put this in here to make it seem tougher when an experienced FIFA player first launches the new game.

   The third however is the worst and the online cardinal sin. Last year they did something amazing and made pace count for less and strength mean so much more. This put an end to the shower of arses who played online and played constant lobbed through-balls to their intentionally chosen fast strikers to run in and score.. You still got the odd few who tried it, but unless you weren't paying attention you could usually deal with it and romp to victory because these players didn't actually know how to play football and thought that was all you did (probably American (or Birmingham City fans...)). This year though it's back. They have reinstated the pace difference and once again you're dealing with having to lose online to inferior players who just hoof balls over the top and run in behind to score while you're trying to build nice team moves. Sure, you can counteract this in online seasons by not being top teams an hence not getting matched against teams full of fast strikers but in ultimate teams online? Forget about it. That's my favourite mode ruined then.
   And another thing, The commentary. It's a series of old lines from many FIFA's past (Rio Ferdinand is so quick...?) and talk of the World cup just gone. How old will that be come January? They'll need to use the window to transfer in some new lines. I normally play with the sound on for the first couple of months but after 4 days I already had it on mute listening to music. Plus, as an added bonus there seems to be a lot of issues with the game getting stuck, I've now twice had full time and not be able to do anything and the players just stand there and I've had to forfeit the match to get out of it, where's the patch?
   Something positive is needed I suppose. There is still a great depth of game modes (though that has been the case for years now anyway) and the smart online matchmaking with similar team and player levels matched up is far better done than anything you see anywhere else. Also, it's the first game (that I'm aware of) that has had Villa park in it since Actua Soccer 3 (let's play in the snow!). Gameplay wise though, they have blown it for me. Looks like it's back to Pro Evo for me this year. 4/10.

Games Season: Destiny

   Yes, it's that time of the year again, heading in to Christmas where everyone has to launch all of their games at once. That means to all of us gamers out their that's it's time to put a stop to working, eating and sleeping and play as fast as we can (that sounded dodgy).
   The first release is arguably the biggest too (or at least most marketed) in Destiny. Bungie split off from Microsoft and the Halo franchise that made them famous to do their own thing, which turned out to be a sci-fi FPS. Wait, what? Yes, they broke free of their Halo shackles and decided to stick on that same route, I suppose you could argue stick to what you do best but after having just had a long running franchise they have signed up to a 10 year deal with Activision to make Destiny in to a video game behemoth and to me it seems like they're retreading old ground.
   The marketing has been through the roof, you certainly can't fault Activision on that side because you can't turn your head without seeing and/or hearing something about Destiny (At least I can't seem to). They already have Call of Duty remember, one of the most successful video game series of all time (financially, game wise...) so they must want to take the FPS market over and corner it themselves. Of course COD won't require much marketing, just put an advert for the new game in the old one and people will get that, but Destiny is a new beast, Halo wasn't like COD where everyone and their dog plays, it was more of a gamers game series rather than the more casual style of COD. Maybe then they're trying to catch both sets of game buyers in 2 games then?
   Anyway, enough of this random speculation, let's get to the meat and potatoes of it, the game. So, as well as being an FPS it's also supposed to have RPG and MMO (look these up yourselves if you don't know what they mean) elements but for me this turned out to be a disappointment. I'd be the last player to get in to an MMO, but coming in knowing there were light elements of it was cool, but they turned out to be so light that I have to question if it's worth having it in there at all. Basically, while you're strolling around the maps doing missions or whatever you'll see a handful of other players going around doing their own thing. But that's it really, it's not like people are just going to start randomly teaming up with others and leaving whatever they were doing, people (gamers especially) aren't like that, everyone secretly hates each other and hidden behind the mask of a controller and screen you can bring this to your forefront (or is that just me?). To assume that people would do this seems crazy to me, you're not going to be getting people who played WoW or such to jump over to this, it's just going to be console gamers and Halo fans. The MMO factor also means that you can't pause the game, even if you're playing a story mission alone and for someone who drinks literally dozens of cups of tea a day (really literally) this is extremely annoying as I have to wait to finish a mission before I can make another (or y'know, if you need the loo/ get an important phone call/ someones at the door/ a million other better reasons to pause a game over wanting cups of tea).
 

   As for the RPG elements I'm pretty disappointed there too. Don't get me wrong I wasn't expecting Oblivion or Fallout levels of RPG-ish-ness but I was expecting something along the lines of Borderlands, and this is a long way off that. So, in Borderlands it's all about crazy loot drops, if you have had the same anything equipped for more than 1 mission you'd be insane, enemies drop loot, there's loot chests everywhere and sellers everywhere. In Destiny though, about 1 in 100 enemies drop something, and normally this stuff isn't even good enough for when you're level 15 (the level cap is 30 BTW), there are just a handful of loot chests around, all trading is done in 1 area and the main way to get better weapons and armour are to even pull off difficult co-op missions or strikes (or go them alone if you're nuts (I wouldn't recommend that)) as well a going to the Crucible and doing some PvP (we have to call it 'PvP as it's an MMO rather than just 'online multiplayer' or 'shoot the scum').
   So, the crucible is pretty disappointing too with only 4 game modes and a handful of maps, I'm sure more will come on the future as Bungie are heavily supporting this game post release  but right now it's frustrating. There also seems to be a huge advantage to the people playing with better weapons as they'll kill you in seconds where you seem to need considerably longer to do so. Now, I remember this argument happening about COD long ago (probably still does) but personally I never found that. Not that I wish to toot my own horn but I'm pretty good at FPS' and I managed to do better than most very highly rated players on COD on line due to stealth tactics and smart thinking as the knife kills and mines, grenades etc. would be one shot kills, but they're not on Destiny and furthermore all enemies show up on the radar at all time so it's not like you can be stealthy, it's either snipe or charge in.
   The story as well, oh dear. They have set up a good lore here but the game never does more than scratch the surface of this and if you want to know more you have to collect Grimoire cards, go to the Bungie website, sign up and read dozens of small paragraphs on cards to get the story. They barely tell you any of this plot backstory throughout the course of the game and they've got Peter Dinklage, Lance Reddick, Bill Nighy, Gina Torres and more doing voice overs for this game! If they wanted it to be more of a multiplayer, non-story experience why bother having more than a 1 minute start cut scene and just a couple of small time charlies in the voice recording booth.? With a cast like this though they have got to do more with them.

With all this criticism why play it at all then? I'll tell you. The game play is damn well phenomenal. Bungie knocks this one out of the park, using the experience from years of Halo and adding a bit of that iron sights current day style that's popular these days they have created something really special. Killing enemies is just so much fun. There's plenty of different types of weapons to choose from and you can carry dozens at a time so you're prepared for anything and they're all great. Whether you're pulling off a head shot with a sniper rifle from miles away on a high powered enemy to put them down, flying over an enemy and gunning him down from above his head or just shotgunning (is that a word? probably not) some smegger who has just leaped out in front of you I really can't explain how great the gun play is without you playing it. It's like Halo meets COD meets Bulletstorm. Not just the guns though, there's a vehicle ready to spawn between your legs (oo-er missus) whenever you want, you have a jet pack that can give you the ability to make some serious distance off the floor and you're chocked full of different specials. Now, I only played through as the Titan class, and as I have said many times before, I don't do games twice, so that's all I'll ever be, but speaking from this experience you can get a ground thump that blows away anything near, a huge running punch that makes you feel like a bad ass when it connects (especially if you're running head on in to a guy shooting at you, you're about to die but just before he can fire that last bullet you punch him 10 feet in to the air and you can just stand there and be all like 'yeah' *nod to yourself*) and multiple types of rechargeable grenades. There's plenty of motivation to get levelled up to level 20 as well (I know I said that 30 was the level cap before but between 20-30 you level up in a non-traditional way where better armour gives you more 'light' and this levels you up somehow) as you unlock abilities that makes these special moves even better (note, after you get past level 20, you still seem to gain xp to level these things up independently of what it says your level is, so the way I see it, after level 20 doesn't really tell you who has the best character, just who has been committed/lucky enough to get the good loot drops).
   This game is supposed to be here to stay, and there certainly seems to be a fan base committed to doing this and fair play to them. I'm not saying I won't play it again, I might jump on line with some friends and do a co=op strike or some PvP again but I'm not going to spend 100 hours playing it in attempt to complete the raid of glass (look it up).
   So a score? lets go 7/10. It may have been higher had it not been made out to be the most anticipated thing in the history of anything and maybe it's unfair to lower the score of a game based on hype and not just it's merits. However I disagree. This one was supposed to be one for the ages but turned out to be merely good. Still, there's life signs here and if they really want to build a new franchise out of this game they could have done a lot worse than this to have started it, it's definitely got a chance to 'do an assassins creed' (news that Alberto Del Rio is sure to appreciate). Good luck to them and I'll see Bungie for Destiny 2.

Toot Toot.

Indie Watch: Super Time Force

   Before I got started on this whole winter of games thing I wanted to make sure I could write a review that wasn't just a spoiler-filled walk through of the plot, thus ruining the game for anyone who read it. That isn't to say that's why I played this game, I just thought of doing this as a trial run when I was already deep in to the game. The real reason I played it was because it was on the 'games with gold' deal that Xbox offers where they offer you a free game a few free games a month if you've got a gold subscription. I didn't have much to do yesterday so i figured I'd give it a whirl, after all I'd heard many good things about it.
   So, it's an old style platform shooter, think Metroid, Mega man or kid Chameleon. That's quite a standard to live u to, but in it's own way, it does. The twist here is that you can go backwards in time, at your own will or when you die and go back and help yourself while the ghost of your yet to die future self still fights on until he meets his demise. This is where it gets more complicated (well, it sounds complicated but it all makes sense when you play it).
   Okay, first I'll point out that there's multiple characters (more on that later) with their own specific skill set. The trick is to use the ability to have many of yourself on the screen combined with their individual skill sets to get through sections in the fastest time possible (there's a level timer by the way (more on that later too)). You get the added bonus that if you defeat whatever killed one of your former selves before he is able to do 'em in then you can collect them as sort of a 'second heart' if you catch my twist with the added bonus that their weapons combine with your current ones while you have this added protection, allowing you yo do extra damage. Get it? Got it? Good.

   As you can see it's not the greatest looking game, but it's supposed to be that way with indie gaming breeding almost a retro revolution as in general indie studios could by now way keep up financially with the big publisher owned studios, so making them look like this is in their best interest as if they challenged them to a war of graphics or deep gameplay mechanics they would lose due to massive budget differences (that said Hello games look like they're going for it with the game that will probably make me buy a PS4 in No Mans Sky). As a gamer bought up mainly on the Mega Drive I have no problem with this, but I do at times wonder what younger gamers think of these kind of titles.
   As I mentioned earlier there is a level timer, and this wound me up to no end at the start and nearly led to more broken-controller syndrome that I've suffered so many times before. I thought I couldn't carry on, but I forced my way through (I didn't really have anything to do yesterday afternoon) and I'm glad I did.The times is integral to the game, without it you could take your time and it would be so easy, but the urgency that the timer gives the game make it far more action orientated and manic which leads to that much more fun. There are collectibles and unlockable characters throughout the levels as well, and even though I did get all the characters (that you can find), I'm not one for meaningless collectibles (even if they do come with delicious achievement points AND more unlockable characters). Plus when you finish it there's an ultra hard mode (or something like that, I didn't bother as I'm not one for playing games twice (as you will notice in the winter games coming up when I don't play GTA V or the Master Chief collection)) so there is plenty for you to do in this game, if you want it.
   The story is loose but fun, and the whole game is based on reference based comedy which you may have noticed by now is something I enjoy. Characters are named things like 'Melanie Gibson' (a woman) and Dolphin Lungren (a dolphin). As you can guess a lot of these references are to action films, but classics so it's fine. Every level starts with a pun about what day and time of day it is and your ship crushing some poor defenceless type. There's a repetitious style of comedy in this (at times) which is heavily featured in the final cut scene and if your a fan of Stewart Lee (or the many, many other comedians/ Comedy shows of the same style who I forget) then it's right down your comedy-bone-alley.
   So, you travel through time fun inane reasons which keeps it fresh as your always in some crazy location with some ridiculous enemies and in a great touch, aside from the first and last levels, you can play them in whatever order you want (and re-visit old levels for collectibles you missed and etc.) which is a nice touch that just doesn't happen very much. This makes you feel like there's no real advance in difficulty, and that's probably true. If anything the game gets easier as you get more of an idea what you're doing and eventually start figuring out how to use the time differences to your advantage and not just using it like a quick re spawn on any other platformer (which was how I was doing it at first, probably hence why I got so annoyed), and you had better get used to it by the time you get to the last world/zone/set of levels.

   Oh right, I never mentioned how it played. Well, perfectly well, it's hardly the greatest gameplay style ever made, I mean, it could let you control your aiming with the right stick or shoulder buttons or something as well as letting you duck (which I kept trying to do and forgetting you couldn't) would be nice. It's good though, and it's more of a way to get you to play this insane game that's brilliant and insane in it's execution. Some great ideas were put in to this game and  at times you feel like it's just a pubes' width from brilliance and if there was to ever be a sequel it would probably be a 'home run' as the Americans would say.
   I don't want to do a score, read it for yourself and figure out if you want it (pretty sure there'll be you tube videos too). It's £11.99 on Xbox one, 360 and Steam (Steam's has extra content too) so you're hardly forking out a fortune, plus, if you have an Xbox One (who doesn't after all...) it's free with Gold until the end of September.

So, I know this wasn't my usual standard of hilarious, but I'll try better in the game I'm 'Destined' (wink) to play next.

The Walking Dead (the game) season 2 finale

Spoilers are coming, so I'll drop in a picture so you don't accidentally see it without scrolling down

   There, aren't I nice, don't let any bastards tell you otherwise. So, Oh My God, I killed Kenny!? Apparently I could've not done so, but he had become a jerk anyway, just because he lost his son, woman and eye, sheesh, get over it.
   Lets cover what had already happened in the season then. After Lee's death, you meet a new group who are trying to get away from some evil leader guy named Carver. You find Kenny and co, then get Captured by Carver. You kill him and escape, shoot some Russian and lots of people die in the process.
   So, this episode starts with the slaughter of the Russians, helped by Jane's timely return to knife one in the neck. That leaves just the Russian bait left. Needless to say I wanted to kill the dick, as did Kenny but everyone else was too nice, and he said he had shelter to take us to, so yeah, let's just go with the guy who tried to have us all killed why not? So they do, but Kenny is pissed, rightly so, because I am too. So, we find it's really far away and have to stop a night at a power station (as you do) where we see that Jane and Luke are in love just cause they had sex 1 time for 10 minutes, because that's definitely how love works. Jane is a bad ass though so won't admit her feelings while Bonnie tells Luke how hot he is, and You (as Clem) have an option to say this too, but even with my own warped mind I couldn't go down some paedophilia route, no siree, I'll just stick to getting the small child drunk and smoking thank you very much. Meanwhile, Kenn is looking after the baby, named 'Alvin Junior' after who may have been his Dad (can't remember if it was ever confirmed or not) seeing as he had to shoot it's zombie Mum. He's getting far to protective of 'AJ' (what a cliched name, urgh) due to the stuff I mentioned earlier and it gets a bit creeps that he seems to protect this kid like his own while simultaneously hating everyone else and losing his marbles. Meanwhile, Arvo (the Russian knob (BTW, I'm not saying all Russians are knobs (I'm not WWE), I'm sure the overwhelming majority are nice, but this one is) doesn't want anything to do with the group. \probably has something to do with us slaughtering his group, but they started it.
   So, next day we carry on to this house, but oh no! It's across a frozen lake. So, instead of walking around it like a sensible person would do, they decide to go slowly, one at a time. However, by slowly one at a time, they mean slowly, 2 feet away from each other (idiots). That's when some zombie scum start coming after you, an those fools don't know to walk carefully, and they keep falling in like the bunch of mugs they are. But then the ice cracks underneath Luke (Also, he got shot earlier, so his walking isn't so great), so he looks pretty screwed, but I go to rescue him anyway, fall in, he saves me but wounds up getting drowned while Clem escapes (thankfully this all happened under the ice so no one knows it's your fault, as ever) for the first of many sad moments in the game.
   Anyway, forget him, he's dead, he's hardly the first, despite the fact Clem had a childhood crush on him. So, you make it in to the cabin, which turns out to be a dump with 2 tins of chili in it (hardly the bounty promised), which, combined with Luke's death pushes Kenny over the edge and he lays a smackdown on Arvo (that's the Russian kids name) that everyone is disgusted at, except me, I wanted to kill him right off the bat. So, he sees the mercilessness in my eyes and decides to hate me, so the feeling mutual now.

   Kenny decides to fix up some truck now, and being the only person who is still his friend (apart from a 2 day old baby) and doesn't think he's crazy for wanting to kill the kid who wanted us dead (even though there are mounting other reasons that he's becoming a nutter)  I have to go and help him. After a while it's fixed, an after some calming him down, Kenny agrees to wait until morning to leave, and they can argue about the location then.
   Shocker though, Bonnie, Arvo and that other guy who's so unimportant I can't even be bothered to look up his name get up in the night an go to steal the truck and escape, Arvo shoots Clem in the shoulder an she blacks out. Sad moment number 2 now as there's a flashback to season 1 when you're having a nice chat with Lee about how to kill Kenny's zombie infested son (I guess you have to play it yourself to make it sad). You awake in the back of the car with Kenny, Jane and the Baby speeding off down the highway. God I hope they killed those back-stabbing arseholes. Of course argument ensues, Kenny being a mentalist and Jane being a bad ass no-shit taker there was always going to be a clash of personalities and Kenny's weird love for this baby isn't helping. So, they argue over where to go but as they're about to come to blows (sensible while driving) they come to a bunch of cars, which Kenny decides to look for some gas in. It's filled with Zombies though, and there's lots of snow, and you all get split up. After you wander around aimlessly for a while, headshotting some zombie scum you come to a rest stop and find Kenny. Then Jane arrives, baby less (she had the baby last). Kenny loses it, blaming her, and they begin their always inevitable fight to the death.
   Now, I've read that there are 3 multiple endings from here, so I'm not even sure how season 3 is going to work, but I'm just going to go through what I chose. So, I shoot Kenny because he's insane, and, sad moment number 3, he thanks you for doing it as he'd gone nuts. Then Jane shows you she'd hid AJ to prove that Kenny was crazy, so basically you'd just shot your oldest living friend cause this bitch wanted to prove a point. So, do you shun her or forgive her? Under most circumstances I'd shun her, but, as she's a badass I thought it best to forgive her as she could protect me from the horrors whereas what choice are you going to have alone? So, we head to Carver's now abandoned camp full of bodies and set up home there, an start to build a new community and invite some dodgy looking other survivors to join us.
   So yeah, it was a really good ending. This season was obviously a step down from season 1, but it was still good and had a great final part with tears all over the shop, If you haven't played any of it, play it (though I will have just ruined it for you).

Something for you all to look forward to then. It's that time of the year again when all the games come out (bloody Christmas) so I'll be trying to get through them at some speed (or at least give them a go) so that I can tell all you super interested people just what tiny gripes I have with them and, if you're lucky I might tell you if they're any good to. The question is, which one am I looking forward to the most, hmm?

 

Strike suit zero review

   It's free on Xbox one (or Xbone if you will) on games with gold this month (although there's only a handful of days left, but it's taken a lot longer than I planned for reasons I'll explain later) and this is advice as to whether to give it a go or not.
   The answer is no. Good god this is the most outdated and boring game I've played in so long. It seems like a PS1 game (though to be fair it's got PS2 level graphics) and one of those bad copies of X-Wing vs. Tie-Fighter. Yes, it's one of those space battle games where you fly around shooting enemy spaceships and boss type bigger space ships. This need not be necessarily bad that is a space Battle game (well, that's what I thought going in) however this type of game's time is gone. It's on top a more 2D style of space battle now, Like geometry wars or Stardust. If you look back at the Mega Drive/ SNES era you may remember games like Defender and Truxton and even further back the likes of Asteroids and Galaga and I have to ask why anyone decided they needed to make this type if game 3D. I imagine it's probably got something to do with the jump to PS1 when games could start to handle 3D games, so of course everything had to be in 3D from then on (for a while anyway). Unfortunately they should have given up by now and jumped back to the 2D style like so many other great games that have arrived in the last few years but they decided to give a shot at this old type game and it was a terrible decision.

   The added hook on this game is that you can transform in to some type of Space mech and float around with the ability to shoot more missiles and better powered laser guns than when you're in normal flying around mode. What I don't understand is as it is the same ship (and as you can see from the picture above, it just looks like a mech lying forward) why when it's in mech mode would the weapons be better? It's a question to make even Michael Bay scratch his head.
   So, the story as well is not necessarily bad but told extremely slowly. Basically Earth has spread colonies across the galaxy, and these colonies got angry with Earth for trying to control them and not letting them take care of themselves (or is that from Babylon 5?), some debate was had, people got mad and war were declared. You fight on the side of Earth to take down these damn freedom fighters who want to be free, but screw 'em ay? Damn lousy colonists wanting to get their own ideas, do what we say arseholes. The story is also dragged out for ages with stops about every 10 minutes in the game for 2 or 3 minutes of talking about how enemies are coming, then after being told they're coming eventually they do. Thanks for that.
   I may not be the best person to review it as I have actually only played 3 levels of 12 in one of 2 game modes but it seemed like enough. I played the first couple of levels and it was obvious it was boring, but they were short, so I kind of thought if I did about 15 minutes every few days I could force my way through it. Then I got to level 3, and it took about an hour! I wish I could get my time back, hell, I died about 10 minutes in and had to restart back at the last checkpoint or quit and start it again later and i figured that I'd already nearly finished it so I may as well push on but I was left with egg on my face (actually, I was alone so there was no one to see my foolish error so I guess there wasn't really any egg after all).
   Never mind, I have decided not to go back to it now and I'll be happier for it (though it may irk me that I couldn't get through it). So I guess as a score probably 2/10. It got a 2 rather than a 1 or 0 (a debate whether a lowest score can actually be a 0 or if it's a 1 will be saved for another time) is that there is nothing broken with it and it works, it's just boring as all hell.

The Island

   Part 2 in the films watched while drunk is a film that I've watched based on IGN's recommendation that Scar-Jo (a pet name that I've adopted for Scalett Johansonn (yet far from innovated) in the highly likely event that I'll meet her and she'll be so enamoured by it that she'll fall in love with me) wears a sexy cat suit (it's a bit of a let down as she changes after an hour (BTW, this s an action film that clocks in at 2:10, a bit much perhaps?). Now, I'll be the first to admit this is hardly the 'film of our age' that Spiceworld was and will probably not garner as much positive feedback but I anticipate it being stupid enough with enough references to other things, ruined jokes and stupid comments to be just as entertaining as my review of Spiceworld. A second thing I'd like to point out is that I'm considerably less alchohol infused right now as when I watched/ wrote about Spiceworld as even though I'm six pints deep, they were all consumed before hand (a story Pete-Roth (the same goes for Peter Rothery as Scarlett Johansonn) and I've been drinking tea throughout the films (excessively long) duration. Also, this isn't so much of a review as a run through of the plot with comments on the film throughout.

   Yes, as you can see, this film also starts Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Ewan Mcgregor as the lead playing Lincoln Echo Six wile Scar-Jo portrays Jordan two Alpha. It starts off innocently enough (if you ignore Obi-Wan's nightmare) as a group of survivors of some plague that has wiped out the human race being looked after in a facility, all waiting to win a lottery to be led to the only non-contaminated place left on Earth, 'the island' (I think this maybe where the film got it's name). Flashing in product placement from Puma and Xbox, the first problem in the film is when Obi-One doesn't get bacon for breakfast (shocking) while his BFF Rebbecca gets it after being nice (bitch!). They're led in a living style that reminds me of that episode of black mirror with the guy in the complex who lives in a complex having to do exercise and stuff while the fatties are forced to look after them and they're all trying to get on X Factor to to spice up they're boring lives (you know the one I mean) by (shockingly) having to do exercises, eating healthy and doing readings from the script of third rock from the sun (well, the 2 characters in the reading are called Dick and Sally and off the top of my head I can't think of another literary work that they're both leads in (not that I'm an expert on literature (plus the nature of 3rd rock from the sun that could easily be that they got those names from a well known book))). They're also forced to do some lame job studying chemicals or something.
   Obi-Juan's crazy nightmare's lead him to have to meet with the institute overlord (a guy whose name I can't remember and actor I don't know and can't be bothered to look up but he reminds me of William Regal and therefore will be refereed to throughout) who puts some bugs in his eye to give him a brain scan that comes out in his urine somehow and shows the first tech of the future (it's made in 2005 and set in 2019) by having some giant tablet computer for a desk and touch-screen sliding a virtual writing pad over to him and handing his a DS stylus to draw a nice picture of a boat on it for him.
   So back to work he goes and he endures the boring work whilst being sheered up by his friend (Neelix!) and later going to meet one of the institute scientists Steve Buscemi for a secret chat (not about anything important mind (though it's still super secret)) and sharing his secret stash of booze that he accumulated before the contamination. Hmm, something smells fishy (and it's not just my underwear). That's when he catches a moth, and a big one at that (not the monster we recently had in this flat mind, that thing was crazy big), and how would a moth get in when the world outside was contaminated.
   When they're out at the local institute nightclub later Charlotte gets her lucky lottery call, but while Obi-wan Shinobi sleeps and has the nightmare again he suspects something is going on and decides to climb a random ladder an finds out the truth when he sees some of the former lottery winners not in fact delivered to an island but being harvested to for organs. William Regal has screwed them over more that he did with Paul Burchill when he became a pirate. Anyway, he waits until the morning when everyone wakes up (as you do in these situations) and goes to rescue the big winner from her certain organ harvesting fate, breaking out of the complex, through the conveniently dilapidated barbed wire fence and into the safety of a desert where (as if he hadn't already figured) he sees a snake living freely, which tells him that anything can live out there. I suppose you could call it a 'snake on a plain' (ha ha ha).
   Steve Buscemi conveniently drives past on his 'hog; then and conveniently drops one of those match packs you only ever see in American movies that tells him excatly where he'll be. This leads him to some biker dive bar ('cause they'd have their own branded matches of course) where the 'holarious' show that they don't understand the real world comes in force, what's a 'can' and why's he taking a 'dump' in it, haha John-Obi-Won Mikel (it should be pointed out that Regal had mentioned in passing that when he learned of their escape (BTW, he learned of it and sent a special group of mercenaries led by a black (not the A-Team) Frenchman after them. Who'd trust a mercenary group led by a cheese eating surrender monkey (that's not a racist joke, it's a Black Adder joke (also not racist but the name of a show)) is beyond me, but Regal did). Anyway, Buscemi, besides the fact his job, and probably life is on the line by helping them handily takes him back to his house, explains that they're clones made to harvest organs or give birth or whatever for their rich creators and are being told a pack of lies to stop them going nuts. That's when Nola Rice unfortunately takes off her skimpy cat suit (that part isn't shown) and replaces it with some less conspicuous clothes unknowingly given to her by Buscemi's stupid hick girlfriend (more hilarious 'doesn't understand the world gags as Anna marks wants to put on nurses outfit lingerie (hahaha again)). Meanwhile we see Regal showing off the company to potential investors and/or clients (this is never made clear, not that it really matters) that they in fact make weird organ sacks for them and not living breathing clones as that would be a bit of a turnoff to them (apparently that didn't work in RL (movie RL) though, and employing hundreds of supervisors and other staff to loo after thousands of clones was easier (I should also point out that Obi-wan (I ran out of silly alternative names for him) discovered (well, we discovered by way of him as I'm not really sure he figured it out as he's have had to have x-ray vision to do so) that his menial mineral job was actually keeping the pod people alive and well (clones to be kept in waiting and being brainwashed while they wait for the population of the clone centre to die down (convenient no-one questions how they keep finding more 'survivors of the contamination and no-one really questions it (well, Gandu 3-echo does (as portrayed by Brian Stepanek (apparently best known for his role in 'the suite life of Zack and Cody) but he's swiftly put t death by Regal (hang on a minute, Regal is Sean Bean! (interesting fact, Sean Bean has the exact birthday as my Dad, same year as him and everything (or is that interesting?)). Christ how many brackets is this, I'll just put 3 to close and if it's wrong it's wrong))).
   What was I talking about again, oh yeah, The Island (I actually knew that all along but it seemed like a chance to insert an hilarious gag whilst also making you think that I'd lost my train of thought when really I'm way too smart for that). So, Buscemi discovers that \Obi-Won's (again, ran out of funny alterior names) client lives in LA, so he gets them a couple of train tickets to go there and meet their (well, his) literal maker, but Buscemi makes the foolish error of going off to a map. That's when the French army roll in (they're not really the French army, just led by a Frenchman. Also, as previously mentioned, just a gang of mercenaries (or 'soldiers of fortune if you will)), shoot up the place, kill Buscemi but miss out on Obi-Won )again, no more gags) and Natasha Romanov as they hop on the excessively giant future train (keeping with the Star Wars motif, it kind of reminds me of one of those Jawa trucks) that, although is a hover train, still run of tracks (no pictures on Google to show you sadly (well, not near the top and I'll be damned if I'm scrolling down the page for 5 minutes to show you some terrible quality thumb nail to the handful of people who will get the Jawa reference, look it up your damned selves)).
   Just went for a cigarette break there (no mum, I promise I don't smoke, it's just that I went out with my friends last night so if I smell of fags it's all their fault) so I may have lost my train of thought. Right, they get to L.A. (where we see that this film has predicted that MSN search, and not in fact Google will be that main Internet search engine in 2019 (though we still have 5 years, so i guess you'll never know (though I'll hazard a guess you'll get pretty good odds at the bookies))) when the French brigade hires the help of the infamous LA PD to track them down for the murder of Steve Buscemi (liars, it was them!), the LAPD grabs them ans arrests them, when suddenly old Frenchie realises that in fact they don't want them arrested but killed so the truth doesn't come out so wipes out the cop car in his armoured van (why even enlist the bloody police then?) and begins a pig shoot out with the coppers wile Obi-Wan (again, ran out of gags there) and The Black Widow sneak out the side and escape (it should be mentioned that Obi-Wan (remember, I ran put of gags) sneakily managed to see where his unwitting Creator lived while in the cop car) but not for long! They hop on the back of the truck and begin a high speed chase throwing dumbbell like big metal things at the Frenchies off the back of the truck while they're being shot at. This bit kind of reminds me of the only good bit in The Matrix 2 (or whatever it's subtitle was) with the chase on the motorway and it's a fun action sequence (both of them that is (but I'm more talking about the island, not The Matrix reloaded (I looked it up on Wikipedia now))).

Oh yeah, take that Frenchie (actually, i think this pictures from the wrong scene and is from  (spoilers!) a scene yet to come.

      So, they get to the real Ewan Mcgregors house (though that's not his name in this film, missing a fun moment of potential meta filming) where he speaks in a Scottish accent (and says 'wanker' (I love how this is just a quaint British word over in the US but over here it's actually quite offensive, if Trainspotting taught Obi-wan (no more jokes here remember)  anything it should be to avoid it (actually, I don't remember that film as I watched it so long ago, hell, the moral of the film may have been to call everyone wankers)). So, he hits on Barbara Sugarman (good man, I would too (though far less successfully than him (not that he gets anywhere, it's just that I'd no doubt lose her interest after about 2 seconds)) while Obi=Wan gets changed (again, no gags, also, I'll refer to Lincoln Six echo as Obi-Wan (no gags) and the real Lincoln (see, they give them the same first names in the institute so it's easy to remember) as Ewan McGregor. So, the McGregor twins hatch a plot to go on NBC news and tell the world (well, the ones that watch that particular news broadcast at that particular moment) the truth. But secretly, Ewan rings the institute and is all like 'WTF' and he grasses them up and sets a trap so the Frenchies can catch them. Laura though figures out McGregors lying eyes (as she got so used to them after knowing Obi-Wan (out of funny names remember) for so long in the institute, and as they're clones have the same mannerisms (is that a real thing? I guess you'd have to ask the hilariously named 'Gene' the cow (not that you could because cows don't speak (though who knows with clones, it's already a crime against God Dammit!))). So Obi-wan (no jokes here) smartly leaves Lucy in the house while he and Ewan go on a fun car ride to NBC news (ha, sucker). Ashley Parker (i was going in chronological order with the Scar-Jo movie character names but used her name too many times and ran out of the films I've actually seen so had to refer to her Eight legged freaks character name (or have i seen that?). I considered not mentioning her by name again but she seemed too integral to the plot for that). So, Ewan pulls the gun while the Frenchies try to take Obi-Wan (gagless) out, shooting Ewan's super pricey car in the process (ooh, he's mad), but Obi-Wan (you know the drill by now surely) reveres it on him and drives them into a car park for the inevitable face off (no Travolta or Nicholson here though) (BTW, Ewan conveniently wears glasses so you can tell them apart (the same reason Nikki Bella got breast implants)). This of course leads to the old confusion moment where Ewan loses his glasses and they both have to convince ol' Frenchie that they're the the real Eawn McGregor and not the terrible Obi-Wan (burn on Star Wars (also, not name joke)). Naturally, he shoots the wrong Wan (haha) but he's convinced by some fine Obi-Wan (you get the joke now, right?) acting that he made the right choice (or maybe it was a Jedi mind trick, hmm... (wait, 'Jedi' isn't in this spell check dictionary? what kind of spell check is this anyway!?).
   So, he goes back to Ewan's house to steal his life, boat and run escape with the girl, but is contacted by the institute to tell him he needs to come in for a new clone (remember, they think Obi-wan (nothing) is the real Ewan McGregor), but also tell him that generations of clone are being wiped out (oh yeah, after doing those scans on Obi-Wan (nope), The father birthday matcher (inevitably the bad guy 'cause he's English (did I mention that already, God knows by this pin))  finds out that the Echo series of clones, and all since get some kind of memories from their client (or are the clones the clients, which way round would that work?) and is causing them to figure out some stuff, hence the nightmare Ob-Wan (-) was having at the starts. How they got his urine from the Biker bar urinal I'll never know) so he knows they have to do something about it.
   So, Obi-wan (nada) goes back to get cloned while Mindy hands herself over to get harvested so they can get back in the facility. Frenchie picks her up while Obi-wan (let' not bother) gets a private helicopter, door to door service (nice). Meanwhile, at the facility, Neelix and crew all conveniently win the lottery and head in to a massive success/slaughter in high spirits

   So, Obi-wan (non (that was supposed to be a Latin translation of 'no' but turned out pretty disappointing if you ask me (I guess the impact was 'Lost in Translation'...)) gets told his re-clone will be free of charge (you'd flippin' well hope so as his clone escaped, by no fault of his own and tried to kill him! (actually, he did kill him but remember, the institute currently thinks he's the real Ewan) and gets led by some loud mouth knobber to the big photocopier while various voices is taken to be harvested like a field of beets. At the same time, Beany Tell Froggy that the real Scar-Jo will probably die anyway by now as he was too slow and her brain is screwed, but she'll get harvested anyway because 'that's what their clients pay for'. Needless to sat Frenchie isn't impressed, and he's already been paid, so inevitably he twists the plot upside down to save Mary Boleyn and save the rescue the other clones from the Nazi style gas chamber by gunning all the real humans down. You could say it's an Attack of the Clones...
   Meanwhile, Obi-Wan (NO) goes off to rescue the pod people and comes face to face with the Beanster, and of course, kills him, all the clones escape, the heroes and the Frenchie save Neelix, and the day and everyone goes home happy. You could say Obi-Won (I've been saving that!).






   Oh wait, this is supposed to be a review! I'll give it like a 6.5/10. It's a fun movie but don't go out of your way to watch. But if you do you'll enjoy it enough to not turn it off (as long at you ignore the crazy 2:10 running time).