‘Late to the Party’ Game Reviews – Gears of War 2

I’m a big fan of Left 4 Dead and I’ve had a good crack at Killing Floor. One of the commenters in the previous review nailed it though – forget those games, they’re crap. Gears of War 2 Horde mode is where it’s at.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t actually finished GoW2 yet. I’ve only played about 3 hours into the story line. Just forget the story though. They’ve obviously tried a lot harder this time around but, as I touched on in my award winning Gears of War 1 review, the story doesn’t really matter. The graphics and gameplay alone are enough to hold my interest just fine for now

Horde is a fantastically uncomplicated game mode.  Wave after wave of baddies spawn and you blow them all away.  I was playing with 2 mates on Xbox live and ended up staying up way too late on a school night because I was having too much fun.  Finding little nooks to defend (a video game arcade being an ironic favourite.. Pacman protect me!) against massive locust with sniper rifles, flame throwers, melee weapons and my favourite – a gun called ‘the Mulcher’ which conveniently turns enemies (or you) into mulch.  Brilliant.

Gears of War 2 Horde is the most fun multiplayer experience I’ve had on a console in years.  If I ever get around to finishing the game I’ll see about reviewing that too, but it’s already worth the money.  Shop around if you’re after it, I found it for $59 in JB Hifi with EB still selling it full price.

‘Late to the Party’ Game Reviews – Gears of War

It’s 2009 and I’ve only just gotten hold of an Xbox 360. I know, I know. What the hell right? I thought you were cool wob. Anyway – I’ve obviously missed out on a heap of awesome games over the years and now I’m going to go back and play them all, then review them, many years late.

Despite its advancing years the 360 has already impressed the crap out of me. Xbox Live is cool and the quality of games so far is way superior compared to my Wii and original Xbox. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Wii.. but I also like shooting things. Resident Evil was great fun (it’s like playing Duck Hunt with zombies!) but once it was finished the void was back. What could I shoot now? Actual ducks? Probably not.

I saw Gears of War for $30 in a game store a week or so back. I’d heard good things, but come on. The game is brilliant. Why did no-one sit me down on a 360 3 years ago and say ‘play this’. I would have bought the console and the game right then and there (exactly how I ended up with Halo and an original Xbox).

The over the shoulder combat angle is something I’d never experienced before. I’m sure there are a billion games using it now, but seeing as it wouldn’t translate to PC very well and I only just got the 360, this was my first introduction. It’s different and works really well with console controls. Didn’t feel at all as clumsy as I found Halo to begin with – trying to play a FPS with a thumbstick coming from a PC gaming background. 

My only qualm with the game is that it ended. About 3 sittings split between single player and online coop and it was over. It was an immense amount of fun though. Coop is by far the best way to play, not just because your squad mate can  revive you if you’re down, but because you get hilarious situations where you’re both racing to curb stomp a downed foe. On that note, I’d like to meet the developer who decided Curb Stomp was a required attack. There is absolutely no point in it being there, but when you see an enemy pitch forward onto the ground you can’t help leg it over there to take him out. Half the time this results in you dying because you left cover, but what the hell. It was worth it.

All in all, loved the game.  Graphics are excellent.  Weapons are fun and interesting, there could maybe be a couple more though.  Plot is nonexistent but it doesn’t really matter – it’s all about the gameplay.  Wish it was longer.  Going to go buy Gears of War 2 today.

If for some reason you haven’t played this game – you really need to go pick it up.

Remedy: Alan Wake a 360 only title

In news that will likely infuriate a lot of gamers out there who had been following this title for quite a while now (myself included), the rumour doing the rounds that Alan Wake might only be releasing on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 platform, has unfortunately been confirmed by Remedy.

Thank you for your continued interest in Alan Wake. It is accurate that we are currently working exclusively on the Xbox360 version of Alan Wake. PC plans are currently open, and therefore it’s safe to say that at least a simultaneous launch with the Xbox version will not happen at this late stage. Remedy has a deep heritage in PC gaming and would love to see a PC version available to its PC followers, ultimately however this decision lies with our publisher. 

So given the long development timeframe of the game, and the strong indications that this would be a Vista only title (due to it using strictly DirectX 10), this is a rather large kick in the guts for a PC title that was looking very promising.  Its interesting that Remedy in this case are strongly pointing the finger at Microsoft Game Studios as the culprit for the decision.

Personally I very much dislike playing first/third person shooter games on the console platform due to the lack of decent control (you just can’t beat a keyboard+mouse for accurate controls IMHO), so this is a very disappointing move by Remedy/Microsoft.

Via:  Brightfalls.net

Flash Game Friday – Red Remover

Here’s a simple little physics puzzler for anyone struggling through Friday afternoon.  Nice and easy premise, red blocks are sad, get rid of them!

From The Game Homepage – Red Remover

Modern Warfare 2 – now with more Call of Duty

The "Call of Duty" name for Modern Warfare 2 appeared to be mysteriously missing in action from the latest title in the series for some months, but now it appears that Activision have managed to locate the name, give it a bit of mouth to mouth resuscitation and have re-attached it to the game’s official title.

From this point onwards Activision are branding the game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2", with a recent Twitter post by Robert Bowling from Infinity Ward showing a snippet of the box art which pretty much confirms the "Call of Duty" branding being included again.  Call of Duty 6 / Modern Warfare 2 / Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (take your pick as to what it’ll be called by release day) is scheduled for release on the 10th of November this year.

Via:  Shacknews

Mechwarrior 2009 announced

I love any game that puts you inside a giant robot capable of dealing massive destruction.  Pretty keen on this one!  Piranha Games are going to have a crack at the Mechwarrior franchise with their upcoming, creatively titled, game "Mechwarrior".  Not a lot of details available as yet (publisher, release date etc) but there is a great trailer hidden behind this link

Slightly worried that these guys have been responsible for movie franchise games in the past, everyone knows what they’re like, but I’m keeping my hopes up that they do the series justice.  

Now, if you need me I’ll be out back polishing my Timber Wolf.

3FL and Hypernia – A partnership of pwn

It seems like only yesterday EA released Battlefield 2 and started routinely knocking back my pleas for ranked servers. Even Tank’s sternly worded email proclaiming himself ‘king of the internet’ and demanding ranked servers fell on deaf ears. At least when iiNet games and 3FL merged I found out they’d been having the same problems all this time as well.

So, after 4 years of telling gamers we’ll never have ranked Battlefield servers, our new partnership with Hypernia Hosting has come along and made me a liar. Hypernia are a US based company specialising in game server rentals. In the last couple of weeks we’ve built brand new gaming networks in Perth and Sydney that Hypernia are now using to provide high quality game servers – inside the iiNet Freezone! This means any iiNet or Westnet customers playing on any Hypernia game servers in Australia will automatically have it unmetered. Our friends at Hypernia have also given 3FL access to their entire game catalog – which is where our new ranked servers are coming from.

Not only that, but Hypernia have deals with some big game companies as their official server hosts. First up is id Software, who use Hypernia for their Quake Live server hosting. This means we’re the only ISP in Australia with Quake Live servers on our network, in our Freezone. Going forward we’re expecting more servers for things like Xbox games and even some of the big MMOs!

It’s a great time to be a 3FL gamer

Press Release

Blizzard trademarks “Cataclysm”

It would appear that the previously unnamed MMO project that Blizzard have been working on now appears to have a name, being revealed in a recent trademark filing by the company.

Previously Blizzard stated that the unnamed MMO they are working on was going to be based on a brand new franchise, so has this trademark filing revealed the name of it?  Earlier this year, the previous design lead on the company’s World of Warcraft product, Jeff Kaplan, was moved onto this new project and there were also rumours going around that testing of the new game was taking place using the current WoW engine.

So is this the name of the new MMO, as it certainly sounds like the name you’d give a new game franchise rather than being used to re-brand an existing system such as Blizzard’s Battle.net platform that some have speculated.  So what does the name "Cataclysm" suggest.. anyone want to take a guess at what type of setting a title such as that would be based in?

Via:  Shacknews

DOOM: Resurrection released on iPhone

On Monday DOOM: Resurrection was released on the iPhone AppStore for a price of (according to the AppStore) $12.99. Largely developed by the id/Ritual’s Tom Mustaine and Escalation Studios, Resurrection contains many of the core elements that encompasses DOOM 3. Such elements include identifiable weaponry, enemies, and according to id’s John Carmack the familiar DOOM shooter feel. This is largely due to the use of iPhone/Touch’s accelerometer to create a quite a unique controls for an iPhone shooter.

Tom Mustaine comments on the controls, "The goal was to capture the visceral Doom experience down to the iPhone, so we’ve got shooting, dodging, covering and reloading, all the things you expect in a traditional shooter. And then you get the aiming mechanic in there, and you have that core microsecond compulsion where you’re taking aim, you don’t know if you’re going to get killed by this guy, and it actually really kind of gelled together and became the right ingredient for this title. "

Carmack comments that there was a lot of cutting corners in terms of the visual elements of the game, and warns that people shouldn’t misunderstand it as being like the PC / Xbox title Doom 3 on the iPhone. Regardless, it definitely has impressive graphics for an iPhone game.

It is also very likely DLC will be heading to Resurrection at a later date which could feature cooperative play. If you’re feeling nostalgic you may also want to check out Wolfenstein 3D Classic which is already out for the iPhone.

Carmack is also working on DOOM Classic for the iPhone for which a release date is yet to be announced.

Source: Shacknews, id Software