I'm a big fan of racing games, but the Need for Speeds have always varied in quality. On the PS2 you had the brilliant NFS Underground and my favourite ever racing game (at the time) NFS Hot Pursuit 2. But when they came to the 360 with Most Wanted, Carbon or Undercover they was all a bit, meh. They were ok and did there job but the game engine itself was never brilliant, especially in the god aweful ProStreet or Shift 2. Thinking about it, this and Shift are probably the only good NFS games in the first era of NFS on the 360. Probably because a few years ago the creators (EA) bought up Criterion. These are the people that made the far superior in nearly every way Burnout.
Burnout was brilliant, Burnout 3 (or Revenge) is possibly the best multiplayer racing game EVER! But then EA bought them up and stopped making Burnout games anymore which is a bit shit. They used them to make the newer versions of Most Wanted and Hot Pursuit, which are both good, but still no Burnout.
If my knowledge is correct The Run is the last NFS game before the Criterion made ones and it's definately the best of the older ones. It's also probably the last to try and make a racing game with a plot. Why, WHY!? Why do you do this every game manufacturer? We don't want a plot in a racing game. Although this is the closest to a good one. It's just an excuse for you to drive from east to west coast of Americaland in "3 days". I put the 3 days in commas because the entire story mode takes about 3 hours. It is damn fun though. It's just drive bloody fast and either beat the cops or beat your rivals and win each race as they come.
Basically that's it. This is a good racing game. It's no Forza, Grid or GT but I picked this up for £2.99 and it was a fun way of killing a few hours and baring in mind I have played this game before years ago and I played through the whole thing again is an achievement for me as I rarely ever do this.
6/10
Monday, 2 February 2015
Thursday, 29 January 2015
Tuesday, 27 January 2015
Saints Row: Gat Out Of Hell (Xbox 360)
I don't care what the boring people say, Saints Row is awesome! Well, 2 onwards anyway. If you have a sense of humour bypass and don't enjoy fun games go elsewhere. The newer Saints games are known for the mad weapons and some inspired comedy (the dildo baseball bat spring to mind). I still remember pissing myself laughing when I was rushing to save a character at the finale of Saints Row The Third and "holding out for a hour" by Bonnie Tyler came on. Genius.
Unfortunately, as much as I like Saints Row, Gat out of hell does let the side down a bit. Many people may have complained that Saints Row IV was glorified dlc, which to a degree it was. But it still took a good 20-30 hours to complete, which is a damn site longer than 90% of games nowadays. This is a standalone expansion pack. It takes about 4 hours to complete the story, but to be fair, that's how long some FPS's take nowadays, so it's not to bad. Plus at the low (download price) of £15 it's about a 3rd the price of a full game.
Anywho, the game. Well it's not brilliant. It all screams "lazy". The story is fun, Satan kidnaps your main character from the previous games and you have to go into hell to save her (or him). You can play as either Gat or Kinzie. I chose Kinzie cause she's just awesome.... and rather hot :p. But the story is told mostly through a story book style thing and it's not that funny compared to Saints 3 or 4. There isn't really any story missions either, just the "challenges" and "distractions". The musical number is however pretty brilliant, certainly better than most musical things *cough* Frozen *cough*. But that's the only music you get, there is no soundtrack at all, which is a shame as that is often a brilliant part of a Saints game.
To be honest, you already know if you're going to like/play this or not. It's a Saints game. It's £15. I'd personally wait for it to come on sale (as Saints Row stuff is on sale usually once a month). But it's certainly better than alot of game tat out there. It just should've been longer and maybe make a bit more effort and made it a proper game.
7/10
Unfortunately, as much as I like Saints Row, Gat out of hell does let the side down a bit. Many people may have complained that Saints Row IV was glorified dlc, which to a degree it was. But it still took a good 20-30 hours to complete, which is a damn site longer than 90% of games nowadays. This is a standalone expansion pack. It takes about 4 hours to complete the story, but to be fair, that's how long some FPS's take nowadays, so it's not to bad. Plus at the low (download price) of £15 it's about a 3rd the price of a full game.
Anywho, the game. Well it's not brilliant. It all screams "lazy". The story is fun, Satan kidnaps your main character from the previous games and you have to go into hell to save her (or him). You can play as either Gat or Kinzie. I chose Kinzie cause she's just awesome.... and rather hot :p. But the story is told mostly through a story book style thing and it's not that funny compared to Saints 3 or 4. There isn't really any story missions either, just the "challenges" and "distractions". The musical number is however pretty brilliant, certainly better than most musical things *cough* Frozen *cough*. But that's the only music you get, there is no soundtrack at all, which is a shame as that is often a brilliant part of a Saints game.
To be honest, you already know if you're going to like/play this or not. It's a Saints game. It's £15. I'd personally wait for it to come on sale (as Saints Row stuff is on sale usually once a month). But it's certainly better than alot of game tat out there. It just should've been longer and maybe make a bit more effort and made it a proper game.
7/10
Sunday, 25 January 2015
Resident Evil (2002)
This is the polar opposite of films I love, in comparison to my last review (Reservoir Dogs). Now I don't get why this got such bad reviews when it came out, I personally think it's brilliant. It's no Reservoir Dogs, but it's certainly better than 90% of the tripe Hollywood make and is probably the best video game adaption ever. I understand why some of the sequels get slaughtered in their reviews (will be reviewing them soon), but this dosen't deserve the panning it often gets.
First off Milla Jovovich is great. She does that "what the hell is going on" face very well and is a very underrated actress (see Fifth Element or Forth Kind). Plus (and I think i'm aloud to say this about as my fiance likes her too) she is pretty damn hot. Yes she has zero "boobage" but the eyes, which clearly the director/s likes as they like to focus shots on them alot, are piercing and of course the legs in that red dress and boots..... Wow.
Anyway i'm distracted. OK Paul Anderson isn't the best director of action in the world, but the action does the job. The scene with the dogs is over the toply (is that a word?) cool as is the finale with the "licker". The cgi isn't brilliant, but what do you want for a relatively low budget film.
The acting is a bit hit and miss. Hit - Milla (of course), Michelle Rodriguez as the hard bitch, Colin Salmon as the token cool English black man that the director loves to slice into pieces (see AvP) and Eric Mabius does a fine job. James Purefoy on the other hand is a bit, meh. The seen where he just stands there waiting for the lift door to open in particular it's like he just read it off the page for the 1st time. Oh and, nothing to do with acting really but there is a "zombie" that makes me crack up, in the 1st proper action sequence there's one zombie extra in the background that seems to fall over for no apparent reason.
I know people are going "but it has nothing to do with the game". Yes this is true but if you want the game, go play the game, simple. I love Resident Evil. It's not going to win any Oscar's, but as an action horror movie it is solid and (SPOILER ALERT) I bet none of you thought everyone bar one character was going to die.
8/10
First off Milla Jovovich is great. She does that "what the hell is going on" face very well and is a very underrated actress (see Fifth Element or Forth Kind). Plus (and I think i'm aloud to say this about as my fiance likes her too) she is pretty damn hot. Yes she has zero "boobage" but the eyes, which clearly the director/s likes as they like to focus shots on them alot, are piercing and of course the legs in that red dress and boots..... Wow.
Anyway i'm distracted. OK Paul Anderson isn't the best director of action in the world, but the action does the job. The scene with the dogs is over the toply (is that a word?) cool as is the finale with the "licker". The cgi isn't brilliant, but what do you want for a relatively low budget film.
The acting is a bit hit and miss. Hit - Milla (of course), Michelle Rodriguez as the hard bitch, Colin Salmon as the token cool English black man that the director loves to slice into pieces (see AvP) and Eric Mabius does a fine job. James Purefoy on the other hand is a bit, meh. The seen where he just stands there waiting for the lift door to open in particular it's like he just read it off the page for the 1st time. Oh and, nothing to do with acting really but there is a "zombie" that makes me crack up, in the 1st proper action sequence there's one zombie extra in the background that seems to fall over for no apparent reason.
I know people are going "but it has nothing to do with the game". Yes this is true but if you want the game, go play the game, simple. I love Resident Evil. It's not going to win any Oscar's, but as an action horror movie it is solid and (SPOILER ALERT) I bet none of you thought everyone bar one character was going to die.
8/10
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Did you know that when this came out 24 years ago that it was a massive flop. In America no one liked it, it did appauling in pre-release things and partially went straight to video. If it wasn't for us Brits this masterpiece quite possibly would have simply faded to obscurity. You see, we got it and liked it alot more than the yanks and then it became a hit and because of us, it eventually became the hit it is.
This is without a doubt (in my opinion) Tarantino's best film. Pulp Fiction is good, but overrated. I almost prefer Jackie Brown to Pulp, but i'd have to re-watch them again to be sure. The Kill Bill's are entertaining but by no means a good film/films. An aquired taste I'd say. Inglorious Bastards was just a bit shit. Django was very good, if a bit long but not very Tarantino-esque. If anything his 2nd best film is True Romance, which he only wrote.
Anyway, Reservoir Dogs. This film is brilliant. Especially considering for about 75% of it's running time, it's just some middle aged men looking cool and talking. It's all very stylishly shot and one thing I didn't remember (I must've seen this maybe 4-5 times before) is the action sequence with Steve Buscemi's Mr Pink. It's fucking amazing! One of the best action scenes I've ever seen, especially for an American film.
There's not alot else you can say about this really. It's acted brilliantly with a cast of actors that are very under rated even today (Michael Madsen & Steve Buscemi are always brilliant). Harvey Keitel is effortlessly cool, even for a quite short fat guy. Tim Roth is the only one that slightly let's it down for me. I don't like him that much. I don't know why, but I never have. Also if there is any part of this film to be considered bad/boring, it's his back story bit, which is just less interesting, but maybe that's just me.
Reservoir Dogs is one of the best films ever mad, FACT! and would easily be in my top 10 films ever.
9/10
This is without a doubt (in my opinion) Tarantino's best film. Pulp Fiction is good, but overrated. I almost prefer Jackie Brown to Pulp, but i'd have to re-watch them again to be sure. The Kill Bill's are entertaining but by no means a good film/films. An aquired taste I'd say. Inglorious Bastards was just a bit shit. Django was very good, if a bit long but not very Tarantino-esque. If anything his 2nd best film is True Romance, which he only wrote.
Anyway, Reservoir Dogs. This film is brilliant. Especially considering for about 75% of it's running time, it's just some middle aged men looking cool and talking. It's all very stylishly shot and one thing I didn't remember (I must've seen this maybe 4-5 times before) is the action sequence with Steve Buscemi's Mr Pink. It's fucking amazing! One of the best action scenes I've ever seen, especially for an American film.
There's not alot else you can say about this really. It's acted brilliantly with a cast of actors that are very under rated even today (Michael Madsen & Steve Buscemi are always brilliant). Harvey Keitel is effortlessly cool, even for a quite short fat guy. Tim Roth is the only one that slightly let's it down for me. I don't like him that much. I don't know why, but I never have. Also if there is any part of this film to be considered bad/boring, it's his back story bit, which is just less interesting, but maybe that's just me.
Reservoir Dogs is one of the best films ever mad, FACT! and would easily be in my top 10 films ever.
9/10
Friday, 23 January 2015
PS1 "retro round-up" Volume 1
This is going to be a new segment I have dubbed "retro round-up". I have recently got into the world of retro gaming/collecting, well ok, mainly PS1 games, but it's fun and interetesting to see how some games have aged and here is mini-reviews of about half a dozen games I tried yesterday:
Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis -
I like the logic behind this, take your average addictive tennis game (smash court tennis), put the biggest (and then prettiest) tennis lady on the cover/title and voila, it'll sell more.
Back in the day I loved this game, it was super addictive with cute cartoon graphics. It was one of my main 2 player games. Now, the graphics are still quite cute, if obviously very dated, but the game mechanics are bloody hard, I couldn't even win a game on easy!
Then - 8/10
Now - 3/10
Area 51 -
A port of an already quite bad light gun arcade game, although i've always loved light gun games. Especially back then, when I used to be able to dual wield John Woo style and kick ass!
Nowadays, I can't play it with a lighgun due to LCD TV's. But I also can't play it because I appear to have got a duff copy that will only play about a minute of the game before it glitches and repeats the same section of gameplay, but with no bad guys to shoot.
Then - 6/10
Now - ??/10
Tommi Makinen Rally -
If I remember correctly, this was only brought out to cash in on the Colin McRae rally craze of the late 90's. Back then it was bad, but my god now it's horrible. The graphics are standard PS1 racing graphics, but the car physics are mad, cars bounce for no reason and the slightest tap of an (often invisible) wall will spin you 180 degrees for no reason.
Then - 5/10
Now - 1/10
Time Crisis -
My fav light gun game back in the day. The PS1 version runs slower than the arcade version, but was still brilliant.
Now I have to play it without a lightgun, it's so much more awkward, especially the controls. But the game itself still feels great.
Then - 9/10
Now - 7/10
Crash Bandicoot (3) Warped -
I loved Crash back in the day. I remember playing the demo of the 1st game more than the games I got with the actual PS1 itself. If memory serves me correctly they got worse and easier as they went along. But after playing this one yesterday it was still brilliant. Gameplay wise this game could've been made today. Graphically it wasn't terrible, much better than all of the above games. I guess that's why all the Crash games are worth alot on ebay now.
Then - 8/10
Now - 8/10
Tekken 2 -
I never liked Tekken 1, but 2 was light years better. I think cause Lei was always my fav and he was introduced in this one. What can I say about this today? Well not alot because my game wouldn't work at all. It thought it was a music CD. So yeah, go ebay!!
Then - 8/10
Now - ??/10
Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis -
I like the logic behind this, take your average addictive tennis game (smash court tennis), put the biggest (and then prettiest) tennis lady on the cover/title and voila, it'll sell more.
Back in the day I loved this game, it was super addictive with cute cartoon graphics. It was one of my main 2 player games. Now, the graphics are still quite cute, if obviously very dated, but the game mechanics are bloody hard, I couldn't even win a game on easy!
Then - 8/10
Now - 3/10
Area 51 -
A port of an already quite bad light gun arcade game, although i've always loved light gun games. Especially back then, when I used to be able to dual wield John Woo style and kick ass!
Nowadays, I can't play it with a lighgun due to LCD TV's. But I also can't play it because I appear to have got a duff copy that will only play about a minute of the game before it glitches and repeats the same section of gameplay, but with no bad guys to shoot.
Then - 6/10
Now - ??/10
Tommi Makinen Rally -
If I remember correctly, this was only brought out to cash in on the Colin McRae rally craze of the late 90's. Back then it was bad, but my god now it's horrible. The graphics are standard PS1 racing graphics, but the car physics are mad, cars bounce for no reason and the slightest tap of an (often invisible) wall will spin you 180 degrees for no reason.
Then - 5/10
Now - 1/10
Time Crisis -
My fav light gun game back in the day. The PS1 version runs slower than the arcade version, but was still brilliant.
Now I have to play it without a lightgun, it's so much more awkward, especially the controls. But the game itself still feels great.
Then - 9/10
Now - 7/10
Crash Bandicoot (3) Warped -
I loved Crash back in the day. I remember playing the demo of the 1st game more than the games I got with the actual PS1 itself. If memory serves me correctly they got worse and easier as they went along. But after playing this one yesterday it was still brilliant. Gameplay wise this game could've been made today. Graphically it wasn't terrible, much better than all of the above games. I guess that's why all the Crash games are worth alot on ebay now.
Then - 8/10
Now - 8/10
Tekken 2 -
I never liked Tekken 1, but 2 was light years better. I think cause Lei was always my fav and he was introduced in this one. What can I say about this today? Well not alot because my game wouldn't work at all. It thought it was a music CD. So yeah, go ebay!!
Then - 8/10
Now - ??/10
Thursday, 15 January 2015
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze (Xbox 360 - 2014)
If you know me at all, you'll know i'm a fan of the turtles. But the proper turtles, ya know, the 80/90's ones, even the 2007 TMNT cgi film was pretty good and I didn't mind the recent Megan Fox as April effort. The games have often been quite entertaining, especially back in the day. I loved the 2 turtles games I had on my Amiga and I enjoyed replaying one of them on Xbox arcade and it's tarted up version. But there has yet to be a re-release of the very original 2D side scrolling awesome game I used to love, until now!
Well, sort of. Considering this based on the extremely annoying new Nickelodeon version of TMNT where Casey Jones is a 12 year old, Crang is a pain in the arse, April is a bit useless and for some godforsaken reason they say "booyakasha" instead of COWABUNGA!!! I got genuinly angry the 1st time I heard them say booyakasha instead, it's fucking retarded, they say COWABUNGA godamnit!!
And breathe. Sorry about that, but it's true. Anyway, the last TMNT game in the Nickelodeon verse was bad, but an entertaining 3D brawler, like turtles games should be. This is a single player only side scrolling affair. But don't for a second think this is a remake of the classic Amiga (or Nes if you're that way inclined) original. It simply takes the idea from it and ruins it and make it ludicrously hard.
For what is essentially a kids game, my god it's hard. If one of your turtles die, that's it, they're dead, unless you're lucky enough to find them hidden in the games maze like world and due to the stupid save system it's easier to simply reload your save when you die than to actually load up from the checkpoints, which take you back further than your save..... I know, it makes so much sense right. Oh yeah and as I said earlier, the whole game is a maze and trying to work out where you're suppost to go is a nightmare. God knows how kids managed with this game.
Basically it's terrible, easily one of the worst games i've ever played. But I did manage to complete it. Mainly 'cause I was determind to not be beaten by it :D
3/10 (if it wasn turtles, it'd probably have got a 1 or 0)
Well, sort of. Considering this based on the extremely annoying new Nickelodeon version of TMNT where Casey Jones is a 12 year old, Crang is a pain in the arse, April is a bit useless and for some godforsaken reason they say "booyakasha" instead of COWABUNGA!!! I got genuinly angry the 1st time I heard them say booyakasha instead, it's fucking retarded, they say COWABUNGA godamnit!!
And breathe. Sorry about that, but it's true. Anyway, the last TMNT game in the Nickelodeon verse was bad, but an entertaining 3D brawler, like turtles games should be. This is a single player only side scrolling affair. But don't for a second think this is a remake of the classic Amiga (or Nes if you're that way inclined) original. It simply takes the idea from it and ruins it and make it ludicrously hard.
For what is essentially a kids game, my god it's hard. If one of your turtles die, that's it, they're dead, unless you're lucky enough to find them hidden in the games maze like world and due to the stupid save system it's easier to simply reload your save when you die than to actually load up from the checkpoints, which take you back further than your save..... I know, it makes so much sense right. Oh yeah and as I said earlier, the whole game is a maze and trying to work out where you're suppost to go is a nightmare. God knows how kids managed with this game.
Basically it's terrible, easily one of the worst games i've ever played. But I did manage to complete it. Mainly 'cause I was determind to not be beaten by it :D
3/10 (if it wasn turtles, it'd probably have got a 1 or 0)
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