Game Diary: PlayStation Notwork

Another week has gone by and most of my gaming time was once again taken up by GTA IV: Episodes from Liberty City - this time on the Lost and Damned portion of the game. I actually took the time to finish all of the optional side quests and events and achieve 100% completion. This entails: winning 12 bike races, completing 25 gang wars, dealing with 5 pieces of “dirty laundry” for the corrupt politician, Stubbs, stealing 9 bikes, and killing 50 seagulls. All of this will take a considerable amount of time, but for the most part it is all entertaining. This is with the exception of the seagull killing, which is very tedious. Luckily other people have gone to the trouble of finding all the birds and making a map – there’s no way I would have had the patience to track them down myself.

My current GTA bug has spread to the PSP, and I have begun playing Chinatown Wars which I picked up around Christmas time. It’s very much a throwback to the very first GTA game, with its overhead viewpoint, but it is in full 3D. There’s a ton of stuff to do in this game as well, and I’ve barely scratched the surface yet – I did complete a quite addictive game that involves you branding your gang members with tattoos though. Plus my current enthusiasm for Rockstar games has me eagerly anticipating the release of L.A. Noire at the end of May - I expect the story telling and free roaming elements to be of their usual extremely high standards, but the game is also set to shake up the genre just as much if not more than Red Dead Redemption.

I also bought a copy of DC Universe Online last Saturday, but events that you may already be aware of have prevented me from playing it. First Sony were telling everyone that they were performing routine maintenance to the PlayStation Network, then a few days later they were admitting to being hacked. Now, almost a week after they first shut down PSN they have informed everyone that their personal details (name, address, email, credit card info) may have been stolen. Luckily the card I have on file isn’t my current one, but it is still quite a worry. I can only imagine what kind of damage this will have to Sony, both financially and from the amount of trust they will lose with their customers.

Finally I spent half an hour checking out the first level of Dead Space Extraction for the Wii – the on rails shooter that is the a prequel to the first game in the series. I was surprised just how good the game looked, and the controls have been very cleverly implemented too. I will play some more and possibly be back with a review soon. Episode 2 of my RMGB Radio podcast should hopefully be up this weekend, and I am hoping it will be a slightly more professional affair than last time, as I’m going for a semi scripted approach. You can expect recaps of all of this months written reviews, a new one for Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, and plenty more fantastic video game remixes. Make sure you tune in!

Game Diary: Return to Liberty City

I've managed to finish quite a few games and get a nice variety of reviews up on the site over the last few weeks, and I'm trying to keep this momentum going at the moment. Ghostbusters and Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands were both rentals from Lovefilm and they both lend themselves to this quite nicely as they can both be finished within around ten hours. Usually if I hang onto a game from Lovefilm for too long then I start to feel that I'm wasting money, so it was good to turn these around within a week of receiving them and still feel like I had played them thoroughly enough to be able to critique them.

After finishing PoP, I felt like starting another new game, and turned to The Backloggery for help. If you haven't heard of this site, it is somewhere that you can enter your game collection and then log your progress in games, keeping tracking of what you've beaten and completed as well as how large your backlog is. I've managed to build up quite huge pile of unfinished games over the last few years, so the fortune cookie feature of the site is quite a useful tool. Basically you can use it to randomly suggest a game from your own collection for you to play. I tried this last week and it came up with Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City, which is a double pack of the two DLC packs that were released for GTA IV: The Lost and Damned, and The Ballad of Gay Tony.

I decided to try The Ballad of Gay Tony first, which sees you playing as Luis Lopez, business partner to Tony Prince, the owner of two Liberty City nightclubs. By borrowing money from some thugs with mafia connections, Tony has managed to get the both of you in a whole heap of trouble and the rest of the game is spent basically trying to dig you out of this mess. Suffice to say though, things don't go according to plan and things get a whole lot worse before they get better. Those who have played GTA IV will have noticed how much more restrained it was compared with the craziness of San Andreas, and The Ballad of Gay Tony brings back a lot of the outlandish missions and ridculous characters that populated the PS2 titles. You will be tasked with blowing up a ship with a military helicopter, stealing a railway car, and throwing a blogger from a helicopter before parachuting out and saving him before he hits the ground.

There's a decent amount of content here at around 10 hours for the main story missions and a whole lot more if you want to complete the required quota of drug wars side missions, manage the nightclub (and perform favours for spoiled celebrities), enter a cage fighting tournament, base jump from 15 locations around the city, and finally kill a whole lot of seagulls. Doing all this will easily double the amount of time spent on this game - I have only bothered to complete the drug wars side missions so far and that in itself took hours. Of course this is only half of what Episodes from Liberty City has to offer - I intend to begin the other half, The Lost and the Damned this evening. You don't need to own the full version of GTA IV by the way, Episodes runs from the disc as a standalone title.

I probably won't write a full review of this title as I think I've covered all the pertinent information here, but if I were to give it a score it would definitely get a solid 8. The shorter nature of these two DLC offerigns is quite appealing, as the main entries in the GTA series have never managed to sustain my interest long enough for me to complete one. I still have my Super Mario Galaxy review coming, and I will see what Lovefilm has in store for me next in a day or two. In the meantime, I'll be causing mayhem around Liberty City with Johnny Klebitz and The Lost biker gang.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands review

It's been a pretty good few weeks in terms of the number of games I've been playing through to completion, and here I am again with another review. This time it's for Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, a sequel to the Sands of Time trilogy that was released at around the same time as the the PoP movie starring Jake Gylkenhaal (though thankfully it is not related in any way).

Format: Xbox 360 (also available on PS3, Wii, PC, DS and PSP)
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Expect to pay: £10 - £10

Graphics: 9 out of 10
Like many other pieces of media based around the Arabian Nights mythology (for example, the Tales of the Arabian Nights pinball table), Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands looks gorgeous. The game takes you through a succession of increasingly exotic locales from the battlements of a grand palace, through treasure vaults, royal baths, the throne room and beyond. Everything is extremely well detailed, the animation of the prince is nice a fluid (as you would hope from a game carrying the Prince of Persia name) and you will look forward to seeing where the game takes you next.

Throughout this adventure you will be given various special powers, including the familiar ability to rewind time that was first seen in the Sands of Time game. Not long after this you will be granted the power to temporarily freeze water, and from that point on you will be using it very often to turn waterfalls into walls, and spouts into columns and bars that can be clung to or swung from. It's a nifty new element to the formula which both looks nice and gives you a sense of satisfaction when you manage to successfully navigate your way to the top of a room after you were standing at the bottom mere moments before and wondering how on earth you were ever going to get there.

Unfortunately not everything is perfect, however. In some of the busier battles against the legions of King Solomon's Army, I did encounter some quite nasty slowdown. It was not just a dropped frame here and there, the game actually slowed to a crawl on more than one occasion. Until you get close to the conclusion of the game combat is not too frequent though, so the slowdown wasn't a huge detriment to my enjoyment of the game.

Sound and Music: 7 out of 10
From the little bit that I have played of the Sands of Time trilogy, I did recognise that the voice of the prince is the same (Yuri Lowenthal, who is a pretty prolific video game voice artist - chances are if a JRPG gets an English localisation, he will be playing at least one part). I thought that the voice of the prince didn't really match up with his physical appearance though, and sounded a little on the weedy side - but maybe that's just me. The musical score makes use of the sort of Arabian instrumentation that you would expect, and gets more upbeat and exciting when you are traversing your way through a trap filled room or fighting off a bunch of skeletal sand dudes. It adds to the sense of urgency and excitement nicely.

Game Mechanics: 8 ouf of 10
Now as I have said, I've only played a little bit of the previous Prince of Persia trilogy. Something about them never quite clicked with me, and I haven't felt the urge to continue with any of them, until now. It may be my imagination, but from what I recall of the older games it was not as obvious how to get through a particular room, whereas in this game as soon as I started climbing and swinging around it was quite clear to me what I was doing. It was more a test of my platforming expertise rather than puzzle solving, with the exception of one puzzle involving a giant gate and some cogs that I found really tedious.

To veterans, maybe the fact that the solution is more obvious that previous games is a bad thing, but I found it to be an improvement. I also enjoyed the steady introduction of more powers throughout the game. As well as the time rewind and water freezing that I've gone over already, you will also be able to use magical vultures to get from place to place, boost your way towards distant enemies (frequently used to cover gaps that you wouldn't otherwise be able to jump) and restore bits of the ruined environment that have crumbled away.

Besides these abilities that a doled out to you at key points in the story, your character also gains experience from slaying enemies and upon levelling up, you can choose from a range of other skills. This include increasing your health bar, the length of time you can keep water frozen for, the number of time rewinds you can have saved up, and a number of other abilities designed to aid you in combat. They are all elemental in nature so will get Trail of Fire and Whirlwind for example. I only really used these against bosses or on the odd occasion when I was overwhelmed by lesser minions, because most of the time I found I didn't need them.
The enemies that you fight throughout the game go from your common skeletal looking guys who are quite easy to dispatch, through slightly more armoured varieties, wizards that are able to summon endless hordes unless you dispatch them quickly, and huge sword wielding Titans. Your standard roster of fighting abilities include quick but weak sword strikes, a more powerful version that takes a few seconds to charge up, and a kick that can be useful in unbalancing shielded foes so that they are vulnerable to a quick stab through the gut. You can also jump on the shoulders of smaller enemies and then perform execution moves or throw your enemies of the edge of the environment to their doom (though being undead skeletal type geysers made from sand, I would say they're already quite doomed).

For most of the way through the game, the difficulty curve rises steadily so that you are getting better at roughly the same speed that the game is throwing new stuff at you. However, in the final hour the difficulty jumps up to potentially joypad throwing levels. I died time and time again during one particularly nasty section, but I persevered and got past it eventually. The end of game boss that followed was a pushover by comparison.


Innovation and Cleverness: 6 out of 10
I liked the new powers that were introduced in this time - in particular the water freezing mechanic. I also thought that the levels and environments were always cleverly designed throughout the game - awe inspiring at first glance, giving way to enjoyable platforming and adventuring.

Value and Replayability: 3 out of 10
The Forgotten Sands is by no means a long game, weighing it at around 10 hours or less, and in addition it is quite an addictive one so I found that I had reached the end mere days after I had started it. After getting to the end of the main game, there are a couple of challenge modes, but these don't last very long either - I mainly used them to that I could finish leveling up my character and purchase the remaining abilities so I could earn the Achievement that goes along with it. The game is definitely worth a rental though or picking up on the cheap (it can be found for as low as £10 nowadays).

Overall: 7 out of 10
This is the first of the modern Prince of Persia games that I have really got on with and it has inspired me to go back and revisit the older trilogy. Its fairly short length and lack of things to do outside of the main game do go against it somewhat, but if you just want a short, fun game to play through over one of the upcoming bank holiday weekends, I would recommend it.

Dragon Age II review

Although Bioware's sequel to Dragon Age: Origins was eagerly awaited by myself and many others who had enjoyed the original game, in actuality the sequel has been turned out by Bioware and EA quite quickly. Unfortunately this shows in a few key areas which I will get into shortly. Is the game an improvement on the first one in the series nevertheless? Time to investigate...

Format: Xbox 360 (also available on PS3 and PC)
Publisher: EA
Developer: Bioware
Expect to pay: £30 - £40

Graphics: 8 out of 10
The graphics in Dragon Age II are a noticeable improvement over the first game, with much more detail and higher resolution textures all round. There's also much more variety in the colour palette. The characters all have a slightly stylised look to them, and I like it. What I don't like however, is the rehashed environments - my main gripe with the game that I alluded to in my introductory paragraph. Every cave you venture into is basically the same one, likewise for warehouses, gang hideouts etc. Although the map layouts vary a little bit here and there, all Bioware have really done is block up doors and add invisible walls here and there. It just feels somewhat lazy and rushed, and I wish they'd taken the extra time and released the game later rather than put it out in the state it is now. It prevents a good game from becoming a great one.

Other than this, I did also notice some slowdown during some of the more frenetic battles, but this didn't happen too often. In terms of armour design, the stuff that you can pick up for your main character looks cool, but other than the odd upgrade for your party members that you can either find or earn by becoming their friend or rival, you can't really change their armour which is a shame. While on the one hand it helps to streamline the game and the interface (which needed some streamlining, it has to be said), it also makes it feel a bit dumbed down.

Sound and Music: 9 out of 10
The quality of the sound overall in Dragon Age II is on par with that of it's predecessor. There does seem to be an attempt to move away from celebrity voice actors this time around though, with the few exceptions being Eve Myles as the new elven mage character Merrill (she is Gwen in Torchwood) and Kate Mulgrew reprising her role as Flemeth. I also recognised the voice of Fenris straight away but it took me a while to place exactly where from. Eventually it came to me - Gideon Emery also played Balthier in Final Fantasy XII. Anders makes a welcome return from his stint in the Awakenings expansion pack (something that I hoped would happen in my review) and his original voice actor reprises the role. Music is once again strong with hints of some of themes from Origins intertwined with new compositions.

Game Mechanics: 8 out of 10
For those who choose to play Dragon Age II on a console, then I would say mechanically it is a definite improvement over that the of the first game. Now when you press an attack button you get an immediate one to one response, and everything moves around at much faster pace while also feeling far easier to control at the same time. At the Casual and Normal difficulty levels, the game plays like an action RPG most of the time with the occasional need to pause the game to administer healing potions or tell your mage to heal, but on Hard or Nightmare it is a much more tactical experience. I preferred to play on Normal, but those weaned on the semi turn based style of Baldur's Gate on a PC may prefer the higher settings, it's purely a personal choice.

For the most part, I applaud Bioware's decision to streamline the inventory screen and the rest of the interface. Now it is easy to see how good a piece of armour you've picked up is compared to your characters level just by glancing at how many stars out of five it has at a given time. It is also much more obvious when loot you pick up is important and when it is simply trash to be sold for money, and I found myself running out of inventory space far less often than I did in the first game (of course, it does help that you have a chest to stash excess items in at your uncles house, but I found I seldom needed to use it).

I didn't seem to connect with all of the recruitable characters as much as I did with those of Origins

. For the most part I tended to stick with my favourite party of Varric (an excellently written character and the unreliable narrator of the tale), Avelline, and Anders. The others all got a look in when the story required in but Sebastien for example is nowhere near as interesting a character as Shale, who was the DLC character last time around. The fact that you have to pay to be able to get Sebastien this time instead of being an added bonus for early purchasers of the game only serves to make him that much more rubbish.

Finally, I have to mention the storyline a little bit while trying to avoid spoilers. It's a much more personal tale for the most part about the life and loves of one particular person, rather than the epic battle against the forces of evil that the first game was. I actually enjoyed this but I know that many of this games detractors cite this as one of its weaknesses. The way things played out for my character in the end were actually quite tragic based on the decisions I had made along the way, and this only served to make it better in my opinion. There are definite hints that another sequel is planned throughout the story and that much bigger things are happening in the world outside of Kirkwall, so it looks like those who didn't like the more focused events this time will be happier next time. Once again Bioware lets you import your save from the last game like they did with Mass Effect and it's sequel although the results are less pronounced this time. It mostly effects which side quests are available and minor pieces of dialogue rather than having a big impact on the story.

Yes, there is at least one dragon in Dragon Age II

Innovation and Cleverness: 4 out of 10
Not a huge score in this category in terms of innovation, but as usual Bioware have shown their flare for storytelling, dialogue and multiple ways to play through the game.

Value and Replayability: 8 out of 10
My first play through as a damage dealing warrior came in at 35 hours or thereabouts, and I definitely didn't do all there is to do. This isn't actually possible in a single play through as the range of quests you will be able take on is governed at least in part on whether you imported a Dragon Age: Origins save, what became of your hero, who ended up on the throne and whether certain characters survived through to the end of Origins

. As an example of this, if you sided with the werewolves in the Nature of the Beast quest in the first game, you will be able to do an optional follow up quest in this one.

The balance of the character classes is much closer this time, with rogues being greatly improved. Then there are several different ways to play each class, for example a damage dealing warrior or a tank, a ranged rogue or a close up sneaky stabby one, and a healing or damage dealing mage, or indeed a balance of both. Most of the recruitable party members can be romanced this time around, with the exception of Varric (I think), and you can play your character in a variety of different ways, from the valiant hero who is keen to help everyone with little reward, the mean bastard, and those who are only in it for the money. All this means that you can quite easily play through the game at least twice and get quite a different outcome.

Overall: 8 out of 10
On balance, the things that Dragon Age II does better than Origins (the faster combat, the streamlined interface) are weighed out by the things it does worse (repetitive dungeon environments, shallower interaction with your party members, a denouement that is a bit weak compared to that of the first game), so I'm going to give it the same score. I definitely don't think it's anywhere near as bad a game as many people are making it out to be, and I look forward to future DLC and sequels.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game review

It's been 22 years since Spengler, Stanz, Venkman and Zeddemore were last on our screens officially as the Ghostbusters. Since then there have been several cartoons, two fan made movies (Freddy vs Ghostbusters, and Return of the Ghostbusters), yet no sign of the original cast reprising their roles for another adventure. Until now. Atari and Terminal Reality have teamed up to deliver a game based on the franchise that is both written by Harold Ramis and Dan Akroyd, and also stars them alongside fellow members of the original cast Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and William Atherton. Will bustin' make you feel good? Let's have a look...

Format: Xbox 360 (also available on PS3, Wii, PSP and DS)
Publisher: Atari
Developer: Terminal Reality
Expect to pay: £10 - £20

Graphics: 8 out of 10
Other than the usual problem of the characters looking like they're made out of wax, and poor lip syncing during the cut scenes, Ghostbusters is a very nice looking game. The proton stream looks and behaves as you would expect, ghosts are well designed and in keeping with the source material, and everything moves around at a frantic pace no matter how much chaos is on the screen. It may be a very small thing to mention but I really liked the fact that the developers had taken the time to put the light reflecting in Egon's glasses during cut scenes - it's little bits of attention to detail like this that show that they've put a lot of care into this project.

I do have one other minor niggle with the graphics, in that things can get a bit too dark even with the brightness setting turned all the way up. This is especially noticeable during a level set in Central Park, where the blackness of the environment combined with the games propensity to not give you much help as to where you should be going next can conspire to get you well and truly lost. Otherwise though, the 360 version of the game does a good job of delivering a realistic representation of the Ghostbusters universe. The Wii version however, looks very different, with cartoon style visuals, and although the stories are similar, it should really be considered a separate game.

Sound and Music: 9 out of 10
This is where the game truly shines, because as stated in my intro, many of the cast members of the original motion picture have returned to do the voice acting for their characters. Unfortunately this doesn't include Sigourney Weaver or Rick Moranis, but you can't have everything. It's a treat to hear the likes of Dan Akyroyd and Bill Murray both deliver classic lines and perform a whole new story for us. Because the dialogue has also been written by Ramis & Akroyd, it too is also of very high quality.

For extra layers of authenticity, you not only get genuine Ghostbusters music including both the theme tune by Ray Parker Jr and the rest of the soundtrack by Elmer Bernstein, but you also get sound effects taken directly from the films, including the proton pack, and the siren of the Ecto-1. It's enough to make you weep sweet tears of nostalgia just listening to it!

Game Mechanics: 7 out 10
Capturing a ghost in this game consists of several stages: first you have to weaken it by blasting it with one several different types of proton pack beam (more on this in a minute). Then, you have to wrangle it with you capture beam, and direct it into a trap. Either hold it over the trap for a few seconds, or (new to the game) slam dunk the ghost directly into the trap for an instant capture. As well as types of ghost that you have to capture, there are also minor types that you just have to destroy - these usual consist of possessed object such as candelabras that have come to life.

Initially you will just have access to the familiar proton stream as seen in the films but as the game progresses Egon will invent several new types of beam including ones that behave like shotgun blasts and a machine gun, as well as a slime stream. This particular stream can be used to remove caustic black slime from the environment, reveal hidden doorways, and in its alternative mode of fire, be used to tether two objects together. This is used in many of the games puzzles - for example in a sewer level you need to fire one end of your slime tether at a weight holding a sluice gate closed, then the other at the floor to pull the weight down.

I would say Ghostbusters is a very enjoyable game 80% of the time, but it does have a few minor problems holding it back from being an amazing game. Firstly, the game doesn't do a particularly great job in telling you what you need to be doing next in certain places, and sometimes it turned out I actually had done what I was supposed to do but hadn't walked over the hot spot to trigger the next event. At other times it's a case of going into your PKE meter view and scanning the environment until you find something ectoplasmic or otherworldly. My other problem with the game I have already mentioned - the overly dark graphics. However these minor issues don't prevent this game from being the best game licensed from a movie in years.

Before I move on, I would also like to mention the online multiplayer side of Ghostbusters, as it's great fun and adds a lot of life to an otherwise short game. You can team up with up to 3 other players and capture ghosts in one of four environments: New York Times Square, The Public Library, Central Park or the Sedgewick Hotel. There are various game types including Survival, which is this games version of the Gears of War Horde mode, Thief, where you have to protect 4 artifacts from being carried away by mischievous ghosts, and a Slam Dunk competition where you have to speedily slam more ghosts into traps than your opponents. It's great fun both working together and against real players online. As is the fashion these days, you earn cash from each ghost captured and can level up your character. When certain requirements are fulfilled, rare Most Wanted ghosts will appear - for example once you have won a round of every game type in Central Park, special ghosts will come out. Capture them all (no easy feat) and you will earn an Achievement.


Innovation and Cleverness: 5 out 10
The slime tether mechanics have been cleverly integrated into the game and are involved in the majority of the games puzzles, and the way the proton stream acts and feels like its movie counterpart is very smart. Terminal Reality deserve kudos for delivering a game that not only looks and sounds like the films, but plays like you would hope it would too.

Value and Replayability: 6 out of 10
The main single player campaign is pretty short at around 10 hours. There are things for completionists to find such as logging every ghost in Tobin's Spirit Guide, finding haunted artifacts throughout each of the levels, and context sensitive Achievements (for example, find an item that doesn't belong at a bar mitzvah in the Sedgewick Hotel level and destroy it to make it kosher). I would give extra points here for the highly enjoyable multiplayer mode but there's a bit of a problem here - not many people are playing it any more. If you have 3 other friends who own the game that you can bust ghosts with, then this will likely last you months, but if you can't find anyone online to team up with, you'll be pretty much stuck with the single player mode I'm afraid.

Overall: 8 out of 10
Ghostbusters fans will be overjoyed with this game as it delivers everything that they could ever want from a video game based on their beloved franchise. It is a fine, if brief, experience despite the few problems I had with it. I hear that now that interest in the series has been rekindled thanks to this game, a proper Ghostbusters III film is in pre production. I will await this with trepidation as other classic film series that have been revived recently have varied in quality between mediocre and abysmal. If the third movie falls though and doesn't get made, then fans can be happy in the knowledge that this game is a a true continuation of the Ghostbusters story, as it feels 100% authentic.

Game Diary: DQVI, Okamiden, Assassin's Creed II

Okay, firstly... that podcast, huh? I hope you've listened to it. If not, I would encourage you to go do that now. It's not the slickest production in the world seeing as it is my first stab at it and I don't have the most outgoing nature anyway, but I'm quite pleased with the way it's turned out. You can hear my thoughts on the 3DS and four of the launch games (full written reviews will arrive in time), as well as a ton of the best remixes of video game music thanks to OverClocked ReMix. I hope to have episode two up around the end of the month, and it will be a slightly more scripted affair this time so hopefully I won't stumble over my words quite so much.

In other news, I have completed my first playthrough of Dragon Age II, so a review is imminent. I will also have a review for Super Mario Galaxy up this week. Besides these two games, my recent gaming time has been taken up by Dragon Quest VI, Assassin's Creed II and a little bit of Okamiden. Dragon Quest VI will be very familiar to those who have played IV or V on the DS, as it runs on exactly the same engine. Where IV's shtick was giving each of the main characters their own chapters before they met up to save the world (here's my review), and V's was the fact that you played as three generations of the same family of adventurers, this game was the first in the series to include a job system. I have only just got to the point in the game where I can change class (after 10 hours of play), but this game differs from Dragon Quest IX in that any abilities learned carry over when you change class, so in theory you can become all powerful if you're prepared to put enough time into it. For some, this breaks the game, but I'm not especially bothered by it. Not yet anyway. Okamiden is a bit of a strange one, because while on the one hand Capcom have really captured the look and feel of the original Okami on the DS, the platform does struggle somewhat to deliver the sequel that fans were clamouring for. The d-pad controls are pretty terrible for starters (though drawing with the celestial brush is perfect for the system), and the pacing at the start of the game gets bogged down in far too much text. You just want to get stuck into the adventure, but the game just plods along at a snails pace. This was also a problem with the original game but it didn't seem quite so pronounced when everything felt new. Okamiden also has a tendency to retread old ground from the original game, and while it is kind of nostalgic to see the same village from the PS2/Wii game at first, after a while it just seems that Capcom were reusing old art assets to save money. It's also something of a shame that the game has been released just as Nintendo transitions from the old DS to the 3DS, as it will most likely be overlooked just like the first game was. Why Capcom didn't wait and make a much better game on the 3DS is beyond me. As for Assassin's Creed II, this one has been on my backlog pile for ages now and I really want to play through it so that I can pick up Brotherhood. I actually did play a fair amount of it before, but I have decided to start again from the beginning. It's such a great game, leaps and bounds above the first one, which was a good idea that suffered from far too much repetition and banal gameplay. The second time around, Ubisoft have crammed so much in there to find and do, and I find I actually want to explore the various cities and discover everything. I think I'll be playing this one for quite some time, and really enjoying myself while I do so. That's it for this week, keep your eyes peeled for those reviews!

RMGB Radio Episode 1

In the first episode of RMGB Radio, I give my first impressions of the newly launched 3DS, along with four of the launch games: Super Street Fighter IV 3D, Pilotwings Resort, Ridge Racer 3D and Super Monkey Ball. There is also plenty of music courtesy of OverClocked ReMix (http://ocremix.org/).



For the full show notes, please click here.

Game Diary: A little bit of everything

Firstly, things have slowed down somewhat in Dragon Age II - after completing the first two acts in the space of the first weekend, I have only played 6 hours or so of Act 3 and there are still a ton of quests to do. I will continue to play through the rest of the game this week, but am happy to take my time over it. Aside from my main character (a warrior), I have also dabbled with the other two classes a bit. I have decided to make my rogue and evil son of a bitch who treats who absolutely hates mages, in contrast to my warrior who is out to help everyone and does everything in her power to help the cause of the mages (and her partner is Anders).

Next, I want to talk a little bit about handheld gaming and immersion. Over the years, I've heard from several friends that the reason they've never really got into handheld gaming is that they don't find it as immersive as playing a game on a large TV. Personally though, I found it to be quite the opposite. I've spent many hours at home, in my favourite armchair, with my handheld of choice and a pair of headphones - it's like a window to a pocket universe. Now that the difference in power and technology between handhelds is less than it has ever been, and the capacity of 3DS cartridges outstrips DVD by quite some margin, I am really excited to see what developers will be able to achieve on the new machine. I don't expect any of the launch games to truly exploit the power of the 3DS, as they have been made on a tight timescale, but games like Super Street Fighter IV 3D and Pilotwings should hopefully demonstrate the potential that it offers. I'll be picking my 3DS up at midnight on Thursday - exciting stuff!

The third topic of conversation I had on my list is my nephew, and the games that he likes to play. Because his dad and I have been playing both modern and retro games around him, he doesn't particularly distinguish one from the other - to him, they're all just games and he'll happily spend hours on the MAME cabinet playing something like Streets of Rage 2 just and much as he will playing LEGO Star Wars on the Wii or Blur on the Xbox 360. I find this incredibly refreshing. Maybe eventually he will start to become prejudiced against old games, but I hope not.

Finally, I am planning to make the blog slightly more Nintendo centric. They make the best games by far in my opinion and yet aside from the odd review here and there the content of this blog hasn't really reflected that fact. I am currently (re)playing Super Mario Galaxy, and I will put a review up once I've managed to collect all 120 stars. I'm up to 40 already which is a pretty good start, so in between Dragon Age II sessions I will continue to plug away at it. I also hope to start doing more videos - hopefully some video reviews to go alongside the text, as well as more in the Nintendo Night series, and Classic or Crap. I still don't have a decent camera unfortunately, but I will look into getting a used one on eBay maybe.


That's all for this week - next weeks article is sure to be full of my first impressions of the 3DS and the games, so be sure to check back in if you're interested!

Game Diary: Here be Dragons

Right, so I picked up my copy of Dragon Age II on Friday afternoon and I've pretty much been glued to it ever since. I've put approximately 25 hours into it all told and I'm thoroughly enjoying myself - in fact it's a shame I've had to tear myself away from it so I could go to work. The storyline seems to be much more focused on character this time around and not quite so much on huge world changing events, though things to start to ramp up during the second act and I expect by the end I will be saving the world as usual. I love the fast paced combat, it feels so much more visceral and direct compared to the first game, and much more suited to playing on a console.

While I'm on the subject of a Bioware RPG, I would like to go over a little bit of my gaming history and how these games have managed to replace another genre that until recent years has been on the wane -that of the graphic adventure. If we rewind time to around what is arguably the "golden age" of the point and click adventure game, around the early to mid 90's, most of my playing time was spent on games like The Secret of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and a bit later on the Discworld games. I used to enjoy these game so much that I would follow every single option on each of the dialogue trees to see what they said and what the outcome would be. Of course in these games there was seldom any chance of failing the game from choosing the "wrong" option, so experimenting was encouraged in this respect.

Towards the end of the 90's though, these games began to fall out of favour and I had to start looking somewhere else for my adventure fix. While I had previously dabbled with borderline RPGs such as The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Secret of Mana, I hadn't yet played a turn based RPG. Then in 1997, I first tried Wild Arms (stopping about a third of the way through) and a few months later, Final Fantasy VII. This was the start of my addiction to RPGs, and while many better games than FF VII have come along since, if it hadn't come along and I hadn't been caught up in the hype, I might not be playing these games today (although I expect something else would have been the trigger eventually).

Anyway, fast forward to the release of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic on the Xbox - the first game by Bioware that I played. At last, here was a company that had combined the exploration, levelling up and customisation that I loved from RPGs, with the conversation trees from my beloved graphic adventure games. It was a marriage made in heaven, and I also really enjoyed the Light Side/Dark Side dichotomy that was quite new to games at the time (but nowadays is almost a standard feature, especially in a Bioware game). Graphic adventures have of course had something of a resurgence in the meantime thanks to the likes of Telltale, and I do enjoy these games, but RPGs are where the real action is at for me. I always look forward to the next Bioware RPG, safe in the knowledge that it will deliver a high quality experience that is rich in both action and character development, and from my time spent with Dragon Age II that is exactly what they've achieved yet again. In anticipation to the games release, I also started replaying Dragon Age: Origins, and I am going to see this through to the end, before transferring my character to the Awakenings expansion and then importing the data into Dragon Age II.

Importing your Dragon Age: Origins and Awakenings save data does have an impact on the game, mainly in the side quests - there are certain quests that will appear based on your decision of the previous game. For example, who you decided to put on the throne, and whether Nathaniel Howe survived the events of Awakenings. By putting these hooks into their games Bioware really enrich the experience for those who have played the previous games, without alienating new players - another genius touch. I can't wait to get home and continue my adventure within Kirkwall and the surrounding areas. I'll be back again with another game diary next Monday, and possibly a Dragon Age II review quite soon, depending on when I finish it.

Tales of Vesperia review

In its native Japan. the Tales series is something of an RPG powerhouse, with Namco Bandai typically announcing 2-3 new games in the series at the same time. For many years, western fans of the series would look on in despair as the games remained unlocalised. Things started to pick up a bit with the release of Tales of Symphonia for the Gamecube, but still many entries in the franchise were only released in Japan. It came as something of a surprise then when are few years ago they announced that Tales of Vesperia would be coming to the Xbox 360 - a machine that has struggled to find a foothold in Japan - but the upside of this would be that a US/European launch would a sure thing to make sure the game sold enough copies to be worthwhile. The game was actually responsible for a sales spike of Xbox 360 consoles in Japan, the series is that popular.

This particular entry in the series focuses on the character of Yuri Lowell, who resides in the lower quarter of the capitcal city Zaphias. After the only source of clean water within the quarter is vandalised, he gos in search of the culprit and ends up teaming up with a runaway princess, a snarky genius mage and a dog that acts like a human. Eventually the fate of the entire world rests on the shoulders of this eclectic group (funny how that alway happens in JRPGs).

Format: Xbox 360 (Enhanced PS3 version available in Japan)
Publisher: Namco BandaiDeveloper: Tales StudioExpect to pay: Around £25

Graphics: 10 out of 10
I personally believe that this is the best looking game available on the Xbox 360 so far. It looks absolutely stunning in HD, with vibrant colours and the level of detail that you would expect from the very best Japanese anime, except it's completely 3D. I'm well aware that not everyone likes animated films so the perfect rating given here applies to my personal tastes. Nevertheless it is a great technical achievement to make this visual style work within the context of a 3D game.

Sound and Music: 8 out of 10
I am not particulary fond of Motoi Sakuraba's musical compositions - they have a tendency to sound very similar to one another (and he has worked on a LOT of games). There are one or two nice tunes throughout the game (for example the music that plays in the town of Aspio), and I do like the fact that the overworld and battle themes change three times throughout the game as you progress in the story, but his work doesn't come close to the likes of Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger/Cross), Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy XII), Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts), Noriyuki Iwadare (Grandia), Michiko Naruke (Wild Arms) or Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy I-X).

The voice work is of quite a high standard, which is not unusual for a game in the Tales series. I am particulary fond of the voice of Rita Mordio, the genius mage and researcher of Blastia (the technology that keeps most of the machinery in the world running including protective barriers that cover entire cities). She really does a good job of making the character likeable despite her acidic tongue, and having heard her in several other games recently, she sounds quite different here. The only thing that lets the voice work down slightly are some of the minor characters - for example old men and women always sound like young people doing a feeble old person impression for some reason.

Game Mechanics: 9 out of 10
Tales of Vesperia (and all the other games in the Tales series) is an action RPG through and through. Battles are triggered by bumping into roaming monsters on the overworld or within dungeons, and you can also gain an advantage by sneaking up on them from behind, or a minor disadvantage if they get the drop on you. You take control of one of the four members of your party (Yuri by default, though you can choose to control any of the others if you wish) and hack and slash your way through groups of foes.

As well as basic attacks there are more powerful special moves which are unlocked as you level up and can be mapped to different buttons on the controller. On top of this there are also attacks that are triggered if you manage to stun your opponent or make them stumble, and these deal out very large amounts of pain (usually enough to kill minor monsters instantly). Finally you can also go into overdrive once your meter is filled to the top, which increases your attack power until the bar is drained. Battles are typically fast paced and you have to keep an eye on the health of your party and be ready to step in with a healing item or Life Bottle should the worst happen.

At the end of each battle you are awarded grade points based on how long the battle took, how much you were hit etc., and these points can be saved up and spent either on the secret Nam Cobanda Isle on various mini games, or on various extra features before starting a second playthrough. Another great thing about this game is that you can hand over control of your three other party members to real people if you have enough controllers and friends to be able to do so - this is one of the few RPG series that does this and is a great idea.

Aside from the battle mechanics, the game features many dungeons for you to explore, and they nearly always feature their own gimmick. There is often a light puzzling element (just enough to keep the old brain cells engaged between the battles), and the dungeons are just right in terms of length at around an hour earlier in the game to close to two hours when you start to get near to the end. All in all Tales of Vesperia doesn't differ all that much mechanically from other recent entries in the series, but it is just as good as ever.

Innovation and Cleverness: 4 out of 10
I'm afraid to say that Tales of Vesperia isn't particularly innovative, it being yet another entry in an RPG series that already has many titles to its name, but try not to hold that against it.

Value and Replayability: 8 out of 10
Tales of Vesperia is a pretty lengthy game, weighing in with at least 50 hours of gameplay, and quite possibly more. There are many optional scenes that you can stumble upon (which can be seemingly random, but look at a FAQ and you will see they are all triggered in some way), and hundreds of skits that can either be read or ignored depending on how you want to play the game. Upon completion you could go through the game again and make use of your accumulated Grade Points, but personally once was enough for me.

Overall: 8 out of 10
Tales of Vesperia is yet another fun, fast paced entry to an excellent RPG series. It is technically flawless, with beautiful visuals and not a single bug or glitch encountered during the many hours of play time I put into it. It is not my personal favourite game in the series - that honour goes to Tales of the Abyss (which is due to for a rerelease on the 3DS), but should you fancy something a little different from Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fable, et al, then this is a very worthy alternative.

Game Diary: Handheld Heaven

This weekend I shut out the outside world and got down to some serious gaming, and it was glorious. The majority of my time was spent playing my trusty DSi - despite its successor only being a few weeks away, the old system still has a ton of quality software to offer (that will also still work on the new system thanks to backwards compatibility).

First off, my copy of Radiant Historia finally arrived after a bit of a delay. I have basically played through the introductory portion of the game, which covers the main mechanics of the game and a few battles. The main twist that it has going for it is the time manipulation - at certain points in the game, a "node" is created in history, and you can use the magical book known as the White Chronicle to go back and follow a different path. I'm not sure yet whether there is only one "correct" path through history, but I do know there are multiple endings and side quests that utilise this feature. Visually the game is reminiscent of 16-bit RPGs - nothing too flashy, but nicely drawn, and audibly the game benefits greatly from a fantastic soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura (probably best known for her work on the Kingdom Hearts series).

Another DS RPG has been getting the bulk of my attention, however - Dragon Quest VI. Despite not having completely finished Dragon Quest V or IX yet (the end of these games tend to be a bit grind heavy) I was keen to begin yet another entry in the series. When DQIX came out before this one, I did have my doubts whether Square-Enix would actually bother localising it into English at all, but I'm glad they did. This is the first time that the third and final part of the Zenithia trilogy has been officially translated (a fan made patch for the SNES ROM has existed for quite some time). I'm now around 8 hours into the game and only just getting to the point where I can change my character class, which is quite a long way in if you ask me. Presentation wise, the game is pretty much identical to DQIV and V, as you would expect as it uses the exact same engine and a lot of the art assets as those two games. There may have been an awful lot of Dragon Quest put out on the DS, but I still love these games.

Apart from these two, I was somewhat surprised to discover that I had a craving to play some more Dragoneer's Aria last week, despite it not being especially polished in any particular area. The thinness of the plot and quick loading times (for the PSP) actually make it the perfect game to while away the time during the daily commute, and now my PSP travels with me to and from work and fit roughly half an hour of play time in each way, which is usually enough to gain a few levels.

Finally, the award for the least appealing game of recent times has to go to Bulletstorm. Having heard and seen quite a bit about this game on the various podcasts that I listen to/watch, I most definitely have no desire to play a time that is so immature. I don't care if an interesting and innovative combo mechanic is buried underneath all of the swearing, I have no intention of going anywhere near it. Thankfully there are so many other excellent games coming out I don't have to give it any more thought - for example Dragon Age II is now less than a week away! You can bet I will be reviewing that one once I've had time to play through it. Farewell for now.

Game Diary: Budget RPG Bonanza

It's time once again for my weekly game diary, and with pay day just having been and gone I have picked up a few new games over the weekend, all of them RPGs. I played a few hours of each, so this article will mostly consist of my first impressions of them.

First up, we have MagnaCarta II - nothing to do with the real historical document, but rather a quasi real time RPG with a Korean art style - something you don't see a whole lot of. I'm betting I haven't seen everything that the battle system has to offer, having only just got out of the first town and completed a few quests, but there's an interesting chaining system in place and you have to be careful not to leave your characters open for reprisal when they go into an "Overheat" state, which leaves them temporarily defenceless. I'm afraid I don't find the main character particularly like able, and the opening few hours of the game are somewhat slow as well, which means that this game will be placed on the giant RPG backlog pile for a while, until I get through some titles which are obviously higher quality all round.

Next, I was browsing through the selection of PSP games in my local Gamestation, and what with the announcement of the NGP and the general lack of interest in the system these days, most of the games are now extremely cheap, so I managed to find a few RPGs that were £5 each. First up in Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon, which is a spin off from Natsume's farming sim as the subtitle would indicate. I do find this series quite addictive, and this one in particular is very nicely presented and has a much greater emphasis on the storyline than most in the franchise. I think of the three games that I picked up, this is the best of the bunch.

Finally the other PSP RPG came down to a choice between Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light and Dragoneer's Aria - both developed by Hit Maker. I wasn't too sure which one to pick up between them, but looking at the back of the box, Dragoneer's Aria was the more recent of the two and had better graphics. It turns out that RPG Fan and RPGamer consider it to be the lesser of the two games, but I've actually had a pretty good time with it so far. I was taken by surprise by a battle with some random monsters who wiped out my party and undid over an hour of progress, however - and at that point I put it down. I am in the mood for a handheld RPG though - first I need to finish Dragon Quest IX as I am so close to the end. There's a fair bit of grinding needed before I'm strong enough to defeat the last few bosses, however. Then there's Radiant Historia which should be on the way to me by now.

Other than these three games, the only other one I've put significant time into this week is Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. I have been enjoying the plot, which is based upon the huge Civil War event that shook up the Marvel universe a few years ago, and it's fun to play a more action oriented game for a while. My character of choice is Wolverine, because of his regenerative abilities. It makes him pretty hard to take down in a fight. I did also try playing as the Fantastic Four for a while, with my character being Ben Grimm, but I don't like them as much as the X-Men.

That's pretty much all for this week - I didn't get much further on Shadow Hearts: Covenant this week I'm afraid. I remembered exactly why I gave up playing it the last time around - the dungeon layouts are long and complicated, the battles are pretty tough, and the random encounter rate is fairly high. Despite this though it is definitely a great game and I will persevere. OK then, watch out for my Tales of Vesperia review which I am nearly done with - I just have to rewrite some of it which I think is a bit too wordy at the moment.

Game Diary: Why?

I can count the number of regular readers of this blog (that I know of) on one hand. I'm lucky if somebody looks at it for more than one minute. Many of the reviews that I spend quite some time writing don't get read by anyone. Why then, do I keep on going? What's the point? Well, the answer is really that I'm doing this for myself. My love of gaming extends far beyond just playing through a game, setting it aside and forgetting about it - it also involves soaking up every bit of gaming culture I can find, be it in print or online form, as an audio podcast or a video. I also quite enjoy writing, though I think I lack the skills (and discipline) to ever get through writing a novel. For as long as I can remember I've written game reviews, way before the Internet was part of our daily lives, and ultimately I do this for one person - myself. When I play really good game, I want to crystallise my thoughts in to something substantial, so that it becomes firmly embedded in my memory and I have something to go back to and reread myself later.

That's not to say that I don't get jaded sometimes. This site is a labour of love and it's a shame it doesn't attract a bigger audience. I have been doing this to try and change this and they are starting to have a small effect. Of course what I would really love to be doing is working for a gaming magazine or web site - a way to combine what I love doing in my spare time with my job, but that may be something of a pipe dream at this point. In the meantime I will continue to post new articles, and work on the print archive of the RPG reviews that I've written over the years. This project is currently on hold until I have some cash to buy a copy of InDesign and some training to learn how to use it, as I would rather make something that looks nice than try and rush it.

On to other things now. I have completed the first part of the Shadow Hearts trilogy (for the second time) and am ready to start the second. Not sure if there will be enough time to finish it before Dragon Age 2 arrives though, as I hear it's a much bigger game this time around. I also spent a few hours playing some Resident Evil 5 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. I initially wasn't blown away by either of these, but now I've taken some time to get to grips with them I think they're both really great games. Finally, I've reordered copies of Pilotwings Resort and Super Street Fighter IV 3D for the 3DS. I really can't wait for the launch date to arrive now, it's going to be amazing. I might also pick up Super Monkey Ball 3D and Ridge Racer 3D depending on how they score in early reviews. I'll post again in a few days with my Tales of Vesperia review, so catch you then.

Part 1 of the amazing Shadow Hearts: Coventant intro



Part 2 of the amazing Shadow Hearts: Coventant intro

Fallout: New Vegas review

With Fallout: New Vegas, Bethesda have handed the reins of the franchise over to Obsidian Entertainment for this latest edition in the series. They are a good match because many members of Obsidian actually worked on the first two games, including the director of this game, Chris Avellone. Many of the ideas that would have gone into the first abandoned version of Fallout 3 have been resurrected here, such as the Roman Empire wannabes that go by the name of Caesar's Legion.

In Fallout: New Vegas, you play the part of a courier who has been shot in the head and left for dead by Benny, just one of many characters in the Nevada wasteland who are trying to get hold of the package you were trying to deliver - a platinum poker chip. After being rescued by a mysterious cowboy robot that goes by the name of Victor and being patched up by the doc in the small town of Goodsprings, you dust yourself down and set out to piece together why you were betrayed and the current whereabouts of Benny. Or, you could just ignore the plot and explore the world at your leisure - this is a Fallout game after all and this one in particular offers more freedom than ever before. However, it would seem this freedom comes with a price, and that is poor quality control, as New Vegas suffers from a plethora of bugs both benign and game breaking. More on this later.

Format: Xbox 360 (Also available on PS3 and PC)
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Expect to pay: Around £20

Graphics: 7 out of 10
While you could argue that as the game is running on the same engine as Fallout 3 and therefore the graphics are almost identical, meaning that I should award it the same score, there's really no getting away from the fact that the Gamebyro engine is starting to show its age. NPCs still have the same glassy eyed, plastic faced expressions they did almost five years ago in Oblivion, so I hope after this that the engine is going to be retired, and that Fallout 4 when it appears will make use of the new one being developed for Skyrim.

Despite many of the monsters being repeated from Fallout 3, there are also quite a few new ones, including the absolutely disgusting Cazadors - huge bugs that do obscene amounts of damage and poison you as well - and chimeras - dog/snake hybrids. Moving on to the world map and the environment, it initially looks smaller than that of Fallout 3, but there is easily just as much content present here as there was before. A lot of the locations don't seem to have much purpose at present however - whereas most locations has something to do or find in the last game, this time there were many places that seemed to be of little interest. Some of these may be related to future DLC, time will tell.

Sound and Music: 8 out of 10
The music in Fallout: New Vegas is the same mixture of classic tunes from the 40's and 50's and a more cinematic score by composer Inon Zur when you have the radio switched off, and the actual music itself is great. There just isn't enough of it by a long chalk, especially when you consider how many hours the game could take you to complete. If you keep the radio on you will hear the same few songs over and over and over again, and the announcements from Mr New Vegas also seem to repeat more often than those in Fallout 3. PC owners have a distinct advantage over console players in this regard as there are mods out there that add new radio stations with 100 or more new songs to listen to.

Obsidian have gone for another all star cast for this game, and this time the recognisable talent includes: Matthew Perry (Chandler from Friends), Felicia Day (The Guild), Zachary Levi (Chuck), Danny Trejo (Machete) and Michael Hogan (Battlestar Galactica), besides Ron Perlman who returns as the narrator yet again. All of them do a very solid job and don't sound like they're just trying to say "Hey, listen to me, I'm Mr Famous Guy sounding just like I do on that show/film you watch!". As for sound effects, a lot of the them are reused from Fallout 3 but there are plenty of additions for the new horrible critters you encounter and are very well done across the board.

Game Mechanics: 8 out of 10
Now, a lot of the mechanics of Fallout: New Vegas remain pretty much the same as in Fallout 3, so rather than repeating myself I will mainly focus on what's been tweaked or added for this game, and direct you to my review of the previous title for the rest. The first thing which is small but significant addition is true iron sights. Now you can finally look down the sights of you weapon of choice and actually stand a chance of hitting your intended target outside of VATS combat, which makes the whole thing more interesting straight away.

Another good addition are the various factions that you can align yourself with throughout the game, including major players like Mr House, the NCR and Caesar's Legion, as well as smaller groups like the Boomers, the Great Khans and the Powder Gangers. As you complete quests for these factions or kill their members, you standing with them will increase or decrease and will have an impact on the ending of the game. Conversely though, while the Karma system is still present in this game, it is almost meaningless this time around and has little effect on the game.

There is also a new Hardcore mode in the game, which changes various aspects - ammo has weight, you have sleep and dehydration meters that have to be monitored, and stimpaks won't heal broken limbs, only doctors bags or a visit to an actual physician will do. These things all change the gameplay up considerably, as you can't just loot every bit of ammo you see, and have to rely on food and water far more heavily than you do otherwise. It adds an extra layer of realism for those who are looking for it and can definitely seen as a good thing.

What is definitely not a good thing however, is the amount of bugs present in this game. I had put around 40 hours of play time into the game when I suddenly started getting a random message about some DLC being missing and then being dumped back to the main menu. This effected all of my saves and prevented me from playing the game as that character entirely. It was towards the end of October when this started happening and it wasn't until the release of the first DLC, Dead Money, on December 21st that it was finally fixed. That's almost two months where I was unable to use the product I had paid money for, and to rub salt into the wound the game went down to £20 during that time as well. I seriously considered giving the game a 5 or a 6 overall because of the serious nature of this bug, but new players won't encounter it any more. That's not to say there aren't still a variety of other bugs left to be fixed, because there is. I will definitely think twice about buying another game developed by Bethesda or Obsidian on the day it's released in future!

Innovation and Cleverness: 6 out of 10
Some reviewers have criticised this game as being little more than expansion pack to Fallout 3, but I feel that is being extremely harsh, as the tweaks to the gameplay have changed things quite a bit. The engine definitely feels somewhat creaky, but Obsidian are certainly working it hard (quite literally to breaking point unfortunately).

Value and Replayability: 8 ouf of 10
Fallout: New Vegas is just as huge as its predecessor but because you can finish the game and see four different distinct endings depending on your path, plus many other more subtle variations depending on how you've finished certain quests, it offers far more scope for experimentation and replay. This is the greatest addition that Obsidian have made in my opinion as it's really interesting to help defend the town of Goodsprings and hand the strip over to the NCR on one hand, and then take over the town for the Powder Gangers and overthrow the entire area for Caesar's Legion on the other.

Overall: 8 out of 10
While the additions made to the gameplay are all good, on the whole I didn't quite enjoy Fallout: New Vegas as much as Fallout 3. I think the overall tone had something to do with this, as the last game was very scary and atmospheric for a lot of the time and this one felt a bit sillier overall. There are far less encounters with feral ghouls and super mutants this time around (though they are certainly present) which I also kind of missed. Then of course there are the bugs, and I can't let them slide without a minor penalty of some kind. So all this combined means that New Vegas deserves one point less than the previous game. See the clip below to see one of the sillier bugs in the game!