flibble_2000ad

The first episode of Tales of Monkey Island was very good. Hard to comment too much before the other episodes, since they're direct continuations rather than stand alone episodes, but I'll have a review coming soon anyway.

And right now, the remake of the original Secret of Monkey Island is downloading on Steam. I've finally managed to get my order put through to buy stuff on there. I'm really quite pleased!

Finished reading all 3 volumes of Batman: War Games. I didn't know much about it before I read it, but since it was in the library I thought I might as well give it a go. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. There were quite a few characters I didn't know, but it didn't really matter, since they were clear enough to understand basically who they were from the context. The plot is mostly about a full scale mob war going on throughout Gotham City. The events are interesting enough, and although the ending felt a bit rushed, I thought it was very good.

Also watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button tonight. While watching it, I couldn't help but wonder what someone like Tim Burton could have made out of the premise. Probably something that worked much better than this. Most of the film was incredibly dull and maudlin. The entire thing was completely humourless with not a single moment to lighten the depressing mood. The aging effects were good, as was the acting (mostly) but the whole thing is a wasted opportunity. I should have expected that really, the critics liked the film too much.

I'm posting this because I was planning on playing the first episode of the new Monkey Island games, since it was supposed to be out today. But because of ridiculous time-zone issues or something, it actually isn't. Which is bloody annoying.

Recently completed the DS version of Broken Sword, so here's a combined review of the original PC and director's cut DS versions of the game. Not all that happy with this review, but I can't be bothered editing it any more, so it'll do.

( Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars review )

Finally finished Gears of War the other day, so here's my final review.

( Gears of War review )

I know I shouldn't get optimistic over a licensed game, but I can't help but think that the new Batman: Arkham Asylum game looks amazing. And after seeing the trailers for the first time tonight and realising that they have the proper cast of the Animated Series I'm even more hopeful about it. It's a game that's pretty much a must purchase for me, for it's style at the very least. I just hope the gameplay is good too. Here's the Joker trailer. (And I'm so glad that they've made the Joker actually looks like the Joker, and not like Heath Ledger in lipstick.)

Every so often a corporation does something so ridiculously nonsensical that it's hard to understand how they get away with it.

Last year Activision said they were dropping the publishing of upcoming game Brutal Legend after they merged with Blizzard. So Double Fine, the game's developers, went over to EA, who agreed to publish the game. Now that the game is getting a lot of attention and looking like being a success, Activision is trying to sue EA, saying they have the rights to publish the game, even though they previously said they didn't want it. I can't believe how childish they can get. As someone at EA commented that it's like a man abandoning his family and then trying to sue his wife when she finds someone else.

Not much to say right now, but I had to post just to comment that the E3 gameplay footage for the next Call of Duty game looks spectacular.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-modern-warfare/50101

The earlier mention of Monkey Island made me remember this video, which I thought I'd post here. It's the band Press Play On Tape, which specialises in covers of old computer game music, doing a live version of the Monkey Island theme.

Best gaming news in years! Where did this come from? I opened my emails tonight expecting the usual junk, only to find an email from Telltale Games announcing their next episodic series will be 5 episodes of Monkey Island, with the first one due on July 7th.

Telltale did a good job of making new Sam and Max episodes and their Strongbad games were very good too. I'm really looking forward to these. Especially as they've got the proper voice actor for Guybrush, since having rubbish voices was my main worry when I first heard the news.

Not only that, but Lucasarts are also releasing a new version of the original Secret of Monkey Island, with updated graphics and full voice acting. I thought they'd only be releasing crap Star Wars games for the foreseeable future.

Now I'm going to do something I usually never do, and preorder the episodes.

Just posting my old CSI game reviews here, after an enquiry about them from sgt_detritus. I wrote these a long time ago, so I'm not sure if they're as good as my more recent reviews, but here they are anyway. I've written loads of reviews of all sorts of different games over the last couple of years, and I'd never realised I hadn't posted any of them at all here until recently.

( CSI: Crime Scene Investigation )

( CSI: Dark Motives )

( CSI: Miami )

( CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder )

I just finally saw Quantum of Solace today. I quite enjoyed it overall. But the directing for the action scenes was absolutely dreadful. Is anyone else sick of this modern trend to film action scenes with lots of quick cuts and shaky cameras so that you can never tell what the hell is going on? What's wrong with having the camera actually pointing in the direction of whatever is happening so we can appreciate all the excitement and actually see the stunts? I've noticed it in other films too, but usually there wasn't too much action in them anyway. When the film is a James Bond film, with all the action that entails, it comes close to ruining the film.

The theme tune was pretty bad too. Not Madonna bad, but not far off.

And Moore is still the best Bond.

On a completely different note, is the Nintendo DS screen specially designed to attract dust. It seems to constantly be accumulating there. I'm sure it somehow even manages to pull in dust when it's switched off and closed up, since I've opened it on occasion and it's been covered in dust, and I'm sure it was clean when I closed it up. What sort of black magic is this?

Right, time for another game review I think. This time, it's Mirror's Edge.


( Mirror's Edge Review )

Braid was apparently released for the PC yesterday, which I somehow failed to notice. Probably of no interest to everyone else who's either already played it or isn't interested in it, but I felt the need to post it here anyway. That's another expense for me, since there's no way I can resist getting that. I just have to decide where I'm going to buy it from.

It's available on Steam, which I've never bought from before, but admittedly it is a very good service and the download speeds I've got whenever I've downloaded patches and stuff from it have been the fastest I've ever had. I just don't know whether to go for it. I still don't like buying online really, but it's the only way for some things.

I guess I can try the demo on there first anyway.

Just finished the latest Prince of Persia game. Not only did it remain good throughout the game, but the ending is one of the most powerful finishes to any game I've ever played. Very impressive. I'll probably post a more detailed review at a later date.

Just to get me in a really festive mood, I randomly came across a free online flash game made by the PETA nutters. It's called Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals. They make their own version of the popular Cooking Mama games, but this time suggesting that Mama is an evil murderous bitch because her recipes aren't all vegetarian. Interestingly, according to this game, blood and feathers come out of eggs when you crack them. I'd never actually noticed that myself.

http://www.peta.org/cooking-mama/index.asp

I'm curious though. Surely this constitutes some sort of breach of copyright in some way. They even use the proper Cooking Mama logo and character. I've seen amateur stuff taken down for copyright and trademark issues, so how can something like this get away with it?

I find the game quite amusing anyway. Can't see how it would put anyone off eating meat though. None of the vegetarians I know feel the need to try and force their lifestyle on everyone else. I guess you get extremists in any issue.

Merry Christmas, and enjoy any festive slaughtered animals you may be having.

GTA4 finally came out on PC last week so I bought it on Friday. I've played for about 3 hours and so far, it's ok, but nothing spectacular. I don't see where all the 10/10 and 100% reviews were coming from. While the actual characterisation and story elemenents seem to have improved, I've got some severe reservations about other aspects of actual gameplay.

Firstly, for some bizarre reason the camera isn't locked behind the car like it was in earlier GTA games, meaning that when I turn a corner, I'm left staring at the side of the car with no idea where I'm going until the camera gradually lines itself up again. I thought this was a problem with the PC port at first, but it seems the camera worked that way on the console too judging from videos I've seen and reviews I've read. It makes driving the car rather awkward, with the only alternative being to use the car bonnet camera view which I don't like. What was wrong with locking the camera behind the car so you can see properly? I never heard any complaints about that before.

Then there's the fact that the car handling is pretty dreadful. In the earlier games I could zip around at high speed, dodging between cars and taking sharp corners perfectly. In the new game, the cars are more likely to either not turn quick enough or spin out of control if you try to take a corner at high speed. More realistic I'm sure, but nowhere near as much fun, and it makes the driving feel like more of a chore than entertainment. And the cars seem to have a stopping distance of about 5 miles.

Finally, I was on my way to a mission when I got a call from Roman asking me to come and help him. I thought I'd do the other mission first since I was almost there, and then go and help him after. After doing the mission, I got another phone call from Roman telling me he was in hospital and he'd been beaten up because I didn't go to help him. Well, thanks a lot for trying to make me feel guilty for doing the other mission I was told to do first. I got to do the mission later when he got attacked again, but that's not the point. Am I going to be at the other characters beck and call all the time? The best part of the GTA games was always being able to do things when you wanted to, and not when the game demands it. Has that changed now?

Anyway, despite those problems, I'm still quite enjoying the game, but they're pretty major flaws and do damage the quality of the game quite a bit. I'm sure the game will be fantastic if Rockstar either patches these issues (especially that bloody awful camera) or a mod maker fixes them. Until then, I still think the series peaked at GTA3.

Just discovered this absolutely insane, ridiculously fast performance of Hocus Pocus by Focus. No other reason for posting. With this, I don't need one.

I've now played about 4 hours of Far Cry 2, and so far it's quite promising. The graphics look great and run smoothly on high settings, the combat is satisfying and it's nice to be able to drive around and pick your next mission in an FPS. It's hard to see why they actually called it Far Cry 2 though, since it bares absolutely no relation to the original game. Just cashing in on the name presumably. You don't play the same character, and the storyline seems to have no relationship to the first game at all. And thankfully, this time the gameplay isn't near impossible at easy difficulty. I haven't played for long enough yet to know whether the missions will be good though, or whether they'll end up being repetitive. It's been enjoyable so far anyway.

I watched WALL-E at the weekend, without really knowing what to expect. I certainly wasn't expecting it to be the best film I've seen in ages. Which it was. As well as perfect animation and incredible art design, there's the best sci-fi movie plot in years. There's an environmental message in there, but sod it, it doesn't get in the way of a great story. I was surprised at just how powerful the film was.

This post has been all positive, which doesn't seem right. It probably means my next one will be full of complaints about something.

So I just discovered that the demo of the Left 4 Dead had been released on Steam. It's a game that I'm not really sure about for several reasons. I'm not sure how good it will be in single-player given that it's focused around co-operative play, and it's entirely about zombies, which I'm growing increasingly bored with after fighting them in nearly every single game ever. But it is by Valve, so I loaded up Steam to try the demo to see if it will be worth buying. And then I searched in vain for the demo.

Turns out, the demo was only available for a few days and then was deactivated once the full game was released. What's the point in that? If I tried the game, I might have liked it and bought the full game. Now I can't try it out, so I'm definitely not buying it, so they've lost a potential sale. I just can't see any sensible reason for having a limited release for a demo. Unless they think the game is so bad that playing the demo will put people off.

At what point did Valve become morons?

(Also, substituting the number 4 for the word "for" is bloody annoying, even if it is a pun on the fact that it's co-op for 4 players.)

Got the new Bill Bailey Tinselworm DVD yesterday. Not quite sure about it really. It felt a bit off compared to his other three stand-up DVDs, which I loved. The first half of the show just didn't seem up to the usual standard, although it picked up a bit for the second half. The weird thing is, the funniest bits on the DVD are in the extras, with some clips from another live show from the same tour. A lot of it involved Bill improvising when things went wrong, and he was funnier there than in the prepared material on the DVD. I think it's a combination of the Wembley setting along with too much reliance on the big screen effects for the jokes that made it disappointing. Still funny though.

Fallout 3 is still brilliant.

Here's that game survey thingy. I never usually do surveys, but I was bored and saw this one was about games.

( Game survey )