Fable 2

I know I know, Fable 2 came out nearly 3 years ago so I'm a little behind.. I quite like the look of Fable 3 so I thought before I take the plunge with that, I best start on number 2...

Well, I am thoroughly enjoying it at the moment, I've married some woman who jilted someone years ago, I have a kid, I'm working my way up the woodcutting job (woohoo) and I'm on the road to find some heroes

The random sayings from strangers are quite funny, and it was quite a bit freaky having some guy "love me" while I was trying to chat up the woman next to him! lol

Worth a look and I'm looking forward to playing this some more!

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit - Full Review

As most gamers who play racing games know, the last 7 years have been rather turbulent for the NFS series. The NFS “Underground” series put the franchise on a high, then, along came “Most Wanted” which pushed the franchise even higher, and since then, it’s gone downhill with “Carbon”, “Pro Street”, and “Undercover” with only “Shift” bringing some respect back into a failing franchise… EA knew they had to do something, so what did they do..? They decided to go back to what NFS was all about (Cops and Racers) and oh yes, they brought Criterion (of Burnout fame) so has it worked..? Let’s take a look.

The graphics in NFS: Hot Pursuit look pretty good, although it’s hard to admire the scenery when your buzzing past at 180mph, but lest we forget, Criterion are the masters at making things look great even at that speed! The cars look gorgeous, the tracks are well laid out with plenty of shortcuts on most tracks (even though some of them are intended NOT to be shortcuts, so you’ll need to be careful) and the crash replays are also well done, with your car taking damage based on how beat up it is. All in all its what you’d expect from a racing game

Sound in any racer shouldn’t be too difficult to do, and NFS is no exception, the cars sound superb and as they do in real life which people come to expect so that’s not a surprise. The sounds during the race are pretty good; you can hear a screeching noise when you scrape down the side of a rival car. Not sure what could be improved so it’s a thumbs up for me



Gameplay wise, I think this is the most fun since Most Wanted…The core of the gameplay centres around the career mode, where you be a Cop or a Racer but it’s not as simple as that. If you are a racer, the events are Duel (1 v 1, cops), Time trial (no cops), Race (no cops), Gauntlet (you vs. cops) and then Hot Pursuit where it’s you and the racers vs the cops…You have 4 weapons at your disposal that you gradually unlock – Spike Strip, EMP, Jammer and Turbo. As you progress through the Racer events you get upgrades to the weapons (spike strips become wider and longer, and eventually drop 2 in 1 go etc.) The cops are brutally difficult to shake off and in some of the later challenges, it can feel like the most frustrating thing in the world, but it’s not something that puts you off the game. The Cop mode features Interceptor (You trying to bust the racers), Rapid Response (Like racer time trial but any collisions cost you 2 seconds each onto your time) and Hard target (The racers have “wingmen” you need to get past before you can go for the main targets). Career also features autolog that is banded about as a “Facebook” addition to the game where any time you set on a track, is uploaded to autolog where friends can take on your time and try to beat it. It makes a good addition I feel.. The online mode is cops vs racers, and can be any combination… 7 cops, 1 racer, or even 1 cop 7 racers… the choice is yours!

Here is a short video explaining autolog:



People who like to whore achievement points will enjoy this game. I’ve been playing for about 15 hours in total, just doing the racer side of things and I’ve unlocked 480 points, and the full 1000 are easily achievable albeit with a bit of grinding, but autolog challenges of friends beating your times will keep you coming back for more which gives you more XP to level up, so 1000 points are well within the majority of peoples grasp!



My thoughts on this game are that I really enjoyed the racer side of things and have just scratched the surface of cop mode. If its anything like racer mode, I will love it.. Some of the racer mode challenges were quite tough in terms of getting the gold medals in each event, but worth it. The cops are persistent and there are times you feel like they are not bothering any other racer, just you… I would say this is more than a rental, and if you’re a fan of the old need for speed games, then this is a must buy. Hopefully some good DLC will be released to make this great game better! I think the only thing a lot of people will not like is the fact there is no car customisation at all, but to me, it doesn’t detract from it at all!

My score 8.5 out of 10

Fifa 2011 FULL Review

Every year come October you can guarantee 2 things… Shops will start putting out all their Christmas stock, including some of them breaking out all the Christmas CD’s that end up driving everyone insane, and the latest war of attrition between Fifa and Pro Evolution Soccer will start up again, reviving the age old debate of which is better… In this review, I will talk about the usual (graphics, sound, game modes etc.) and I will wax lyrical about my likes/dislikes… So where to begin…. Let’s start with the graphics



You get the sense of feeling that you are looking at Fifa 2010 as there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference, so although it looks all nice and shiny, there haven’t been any REAL innovations graphically for the last couple of years. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t look good because boy it does, and it gives you what you know and expect from an EA sports game. You can instantly recognise a lot of your favourites, like Rooney, Drogba & Ronaldo. My dad even thought he was watching a live game on TV he thought they looked that realistic which is high praise indeed from someone who has no interest in gaming so it just goes to show that EA have the graphics bang on but I wish there was something…. more… but I can’t quite put my finger on what.



Again like the graphics the sound could well have been lifted straight from Fifa 2010 but having said that, there isn’t really much they can improve on so I’ll let them off on this occasion. You have the usual commentary team of Andy Gray & Martin Tyler (which is probably what made my dad think it was on TV…) and they do a good job of keeping up with the action but they do sometimes start rambling on about stories, and when you have an attempt on goal during the story, they don’t even acknowledge it. but that’s a minor issue and not game breaking. There is a new feature this year though, and that is the ability to customise the music and chants you hear. This enables you to make changes to what music your team comes out onto the pitch to, and if you have music stored on your hard drive, you can use these (I would be tempted for a laugh, to get my team coming out to the song “Gay Bar”) and you can customise the chants too. I’ve not had a chance to delve too deep into this but it is a nice little feature.

The gameplay has changed from Fifa 2010, in terms of the new “Personality plus” system which basically displays a players unique emotions on the field and some great and unique shooting, dribbling and passing skills. This feature works only for the stars players of course, because they couldn’t have done that for thousands of anonymous players. Ronaldo/Messi have great ball control, Scholes will be good at long passes etc. It makes things like passing/shooting/tackling much more interesting as you suddenly think “Hang on, xxxx isn’t that good shooting from distance in real life, so I’ll try to pass it”. Also, the AI now joins in, during celebrations which make things a bit more realistic. Simple things like that please me! The following video is from the Fifa team, showing you what personality plus is all about.




In terms of modes, you have the standard choices (Exhibition, tournament etc.) but EA have really pushed the bar this year as for the first time in a next gen Fifa/PES game, you can be a goalkeeper. You can practice doing this in the arena mode and it doesn’t seem that bad, but take it into a 15 season career… Be prepared for a shock. It’s really not easy and takes some real time and effort to start to become good. Also be prepared (depending on the difficulty) to not do a lot during the games as the AI seems to battle it out in midfield for the most part. One positive thing is with the inclusion of goalkeepers, you can now do a full 11 v 11 online team play which can lead to some pretty high scores if you have someone in goal that is rubbish…. Be a pro: Seasons from Fifa 2010 has returned but it has been merged with Manager mode where you can partake in a 15 year career mode, as a player, manager, or player manager (you can even become player manager by becoming a club legend as a player) and is pretty similar to last year’s manager mode albeit with different menu’s. Ultimate Team makes a return for its 3rd appearance and this time… It’s Free. Yes... Free. This is virtually the same as last year’s offering (all the menus are the same and in the same order) however, this time you can play a friend and his ultimate team, against yours so let the bragging begin!



As for achievements available, you can get around 160 for a few hours’ work of just playing the game normally (Score from inside the box with a player with the Poacher Speciality, that kind of thing) but a few of the achievements can take a lot of grinding and to get the final 100 points, you need to play for 50 hours… So the achievements are do-able as they seem very similar apart from a few, from last year’s effort.

There are a few things that really bug me about this game: My surname (Cowie) isn’t available as a commentary name for my virtual pro, yet there is a player for Watford (Don Cowie) and they say Cowie when he gets the ball so I know the name is on there, so why can’t I use it….? The AI team-mates if you are doing a virtual pro career as a player are awful. They attempt to take on every player, with a skill move and 8 times out of 10 they will lose the ball. They don’t always pass, even if you are in the clear, and end up losing the ball so that’s a BIG let-down for me. Also along the career mode (if you are just a player) if you get promoted, your AI team will remain the same so as an example if you got Exeter City into the Premiership from League 2, the AI will never buy any new players so you are playing Premiership teams with league 2 players. This was the same in Fifa 2010 and I’m surprised that this has not been addressed.

Overall, I feel this is Fifa 2010 with an expansion pack on it, with nothing major that is new (with the goalkeepers being the one main exception) and the flaws that I have mentioned, for me, spoil things for me, and although it is a good game, it has the potential to be better than what it is.

I am going to award Fifa 2011 a Score of 7 / 10

PES2011

I played PES2010 only on co-op with my brother and we thought we'd take the plunge and get 2011 when it came out..

I havent done any single player yet, just co-op, and here are my initial thoughts...

First thing to notice on this is the passing.. it takes some getting used to, because its so easy to just pass the ball to no-one and then get frustrated because its almost impossible to pressure the opponent off the ball.. yet, they can do it to you so easily!! Also, the shooting is so random... Since when, in real life, has Jermaine Defoe been 8 yards from goal, and hammered it miles over the top with only the keeper to beat... ? it happens a lot in PES, even if you just tap the shoot button... I guess its something that needs getting used to, but at the moment, I'd rather stick with Fifa and the crap teammates!!! lol

Saying that, however, it is a step up in terms of graphics and gameplay from the previous pes's so I'd say definately a rental and see how you get on...

Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout 3 consumed nearly 100 hours of my life without me doing everything there was to do, but thats fine, I loved it... So along comes a side game, Fallout: New Vegas..

It's set alongside Fallout 3, but in a different part of the US (as the name suggests, Vegas) instead of Washington DC.

You start off watching a cutscene which ends up with someone getting shot in the head.. turns out it's us... We wake up in Doc Mitchells office who takes us through the character creation and points distribution stages of the game.. then your off into the world...

Only put an hour or so into this at the moment, but loving it... Its basically fallout 3, but with additions (mods for weapons, different bullet types for each weapon, workbenches to create various items (way more than in F3)

Get it if you loved Fallout 3....

Mafia 2

I went back to this the other day because my brother was visiting and had never played it.. From the minute he put it in, he loved it...

Mafia is set back in the 40's and 50's.. You play italian-american Vito Scaletta and the intro starts off with you being a bit of a rebel, with your friend Joe in your early life and you get caught doing a petty robbery.... You end up being sent to Italy during the war, and you take control of a little level from there....

you end up coming back to the United states, and need a job...this is where Joe makes a return who sets you up with all manner of things to do

The story is great, the conversations between characters are good and downright funny at times...

Its like GTA in the 50's and its really well done... I know it got mixed reviews but I thoroughly loved it.. Its possible to get over 700 of the 1000 gamerscore available, by completing the game, and getting the bonus objectives for the missions...

Well worth a look I would say!!!

World of Tanks

Recommended this by a friend at work.. basically, world of tanks is a free to play MMO but is currently in Beta testing (which I managed to get involved with)

Basically, the premise of world of tanks is to take your tank onto the battlefield and either destroy all the enemy players, or capture their base.. at the moment the only game mode is standard 15 v 15 battle (destroy or capture) and currently there are numerous tanks you can choose from, and in the full game there will be over 150 tanks to choose..

Each battle you gain experience points, that you can use to research upgrades to your tank (bigger gun, better engine, suspension etc) and your crew also level up in terms of how well they do their jobs..

World of tanks will be available to all by end of the year.. Have a look!

Fallout 3

In preparation for Fallout: New Vegas that comes out 22nd Oct, I thought I'd finish one of the DLC's for Fallout 3... Operation Anchorage..

The premise of this DLC is that its a training simulation, and the communist republic of China have invaded the USA through Alaska, and your set different objectives.. Destroy fuel depot, disable pulse field etc... When you kill people, they disappear, and they dont drop weapons, but thats fine cos its a simulation and there are ammo and health dispensers dotted about the place..

Upon completing the missions, a nice 40g Achievement popped up.. yay.. so I am currently running at around 1000 out of 1500 gamerscore for fallout but not sure I will get the other 500... as its all to do with Karma etc..

Loving this game spent nearly 100 hours on it altogether so far :)

Guitar Hero: Metallica

I  was waiting for GH: Metallica like an excited kid at Xmas for 8 months before release, and played a few tracks here and there from March 2009 to now.. but today, I thought that I would finish off career mode..

I had 14 songs left to do, so I decided to suck it up and nail them all... Took about an hour or so to do, and got 80 achievement points from it today, which was quite cool

Now I have guitar hero syndrome (seems like the tv is moving and its quite trippy! lol)

F1

As mentioned in my last post, I signed up to the F1 championship on Ruffians of gaming, and the first round of the championship is a time trial around Canada's Montreal venue, with the participants getting 1 week to put in their fastest lap time.. I must of done easily over 100 laps trying to get my time in.

The benchmark was set at 1:13.3 and after the days racing, I was sitting pretty at 1:11:589 which has me at number 93 in the world, and so far, ahead of the rest of the ruffian crew... so I'm quite happy with that.. I know I can beat it, as my fastest lap did include a bit of sloppyness around a couple of corners so I can get it under 1:11.5 I think... so thats my aim for the next few days...

I will keep you posted :o)

More F1 2010

After watching today's Japanese grand prix, I decided to jump on the game.. Thinking I'd do practice/qualifying for the next GP in my season, Catalunya, but I forgot I hadn't done the Shanghai race, with qualifying out of the way, and I was on pole...

So the lights went red one by one, and then I put pedal to the floor as the 56 lap race got underway... by the first corner, I had been overtaken by one of the Red Bull's... but I stuck to him for a few laps and he ran wide on the 2nd to last corner, which allowed me to overtake him, and I never looked back.. Had a couple of hairy moments where I spun, but luckily I was far enough ahead to recover, and I went on to finish the race, 1st with a time of 1hr 33m...

A good hour and a half of racing methinks... I've also signed up to a F1 racing season, on http://ruffiansofgaming.forumotion.com/forum.htm so we'll see how that one goes...

Modern Warfare 2

As some of you know, I like to do a lot of co-op stuff with my brother, and we thought  we'd do some more special ops on MW2.. We've previously done a lot of them, but we needed more stars to unlock Echo class challenges..

First off on the list was Wardriving... We had to breach 3 houses and basically steal info from a laptop, in each house.. with an armoured anti personnel troop carrier going down the middle of the road to support us.. but it can only attack what we tell it to... Surely the people shooting at us would dictate that..? and its hard to lase a target when people are trying to cap our arses! anyway, after numerous infuriating attempts (on regular....) we finally managed to do it.. 1 star out of 3.. yay! lol

2nd on the agenda was Overwatch.. We had done it on regular so decided to try it on hardened.. My brother was in the AC130 and was raining death on the baddies... last time we tried the mission, we did regular in 41 seconds which was quite impressive.. so on hardended, after a few attempts, getting to know the route etc, I managed it in 1 min 30 seconds... so we tried on veteran... it took a few attempts because I was getting sloppy when clearing building interiors... but.. after about 10 attempts, managed it in just under 3 mins which I'm quite happy with.. We now only need 6 more * to unluck echo... only taken a year since MW2 came out to get this far but never mind!! hahaha

Proof that co-op is fun!

Stu

T-Bo has a bit of a rant...

Ok so you've probably read my initial thoughts on Fifa 2011 so after playing half a season in career mode, and a few games of other modes, I have a couple of things to say about it.

One thing that really bugs me about this game: There is a player for Watford called Don Cowie. The commentators say "Cowie" when he is on the ball etc, proving its on the game, SO WHY CAN I NOT SELECT "COWIE" AS THE NAME COMMENTATORS CALL MY CREATED PLAYER BY?!?!? It was the same on Fifa 2010. Fifa 2010 Word Cup on the other hand, allowed me to choose Cowie as a name... so I don't understand why I can't on Fifa 2011.

The AI is still appalling whilst doing career mode..They dont often pass it, instead trying to run or trick the player heading straight for them... who inevitably wins the ball 8/10 times.. Even when I'm free in space and hammering the pass button like its going out of fashion, they still attempt to imitate Messi.... FAIL

Another thing I have noticed.. Because my created player is now considered a "Key" part of the team, I get selected for every match, which is not a problem normally, but it is an issue considering you have stamina/fatigue levels to contend with... I have seen it numerous times that my player is totally knackered after a game, and before the start of the next game, it shows my stamina/fatigue level as red... the manager says " I know your fitness level is really low but we need you for this game" and by the first 20 mins of the game, my player is virtually on his arse with no energy, which means I can't run past players, I cant find open space to get away from my marker, and yet the manager still is set on playing me... and by the next game, I'm knackered within 5 mins of the match starting...Come on Mr Manager, no-one is stupid enough to do it in real life, so don't do it in a game!!

Ok rant over for now!

Afro Samurai pt1

Ok, well the votes came in and it was Afro Samurai which won the poll.

I got this about 9 months ago but never got round to putting a lot of time into it...

Loaded up my old game and after a few mins of getting back to grips with the controls, I was chopping away like no mans business, with body parts being lopped off left right and centre...

I'd forgotten how long the levels where and I remembered why I didn't get through the game first time round.. It's too damn repetative... I'm basically using the X button constantly and it seems to be doing the job... but its a case of go here, kill a couple of people.. some more people will then appear... kill them and more appear.. and then move onto the next area and repeat the process...

I've done 2 levels which took about 30 mins each and thats it for now...lol

A bit of a challenge to myself

I currently own upwards of 50+ Xbox 360 games and out of those games, I would say I have only completed the single player mode on possibly 50% of those, so over the next few weeks, I am going to be playing some of the games that are sat there waiting to be finished, to at least finish the single player campaign if nothing else... And in doing this, will enable me to squeeze some extra gamerscore...

I will leave it to you guys to decide what to finish out of the first 5 games:

Afro Samurai
Conan
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Devil May Cry 4
Far Cry 2

Post a comment letting me know which I should do first and I will blog about it...

Plants vs Zombies

Having got this on the ipod, and thoroughly love it, I was intrigued to see how the offering on Xbox Live would come out and its actually pretty good

Its got more gameplay options then the ipad/phone/pod versions, which include co-op, vs and puzzle games.

It has all the options from the apple version and the graphics are the same ones we all know and love, with all the same zombies etc

I did co-op with my friend and its actually quite fun, working out strategy saying "you grow the sunflowers and collect the suns, I'll work on the defence and we will go from there" and before we knew it, 3 hours had passed and it was so much fun.

This is certainly a great game for co-op and I would well recommend it, regardless of if you have a version on an apple product

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

My old guitar was going a bit senile, so I thought it was time I invested a new one, and I loved the look of the new one, so I plumped for a game/guitar bundle.. gotta say, feels a lot lighter than my old GH2 guitar, and feels a lot better...

Start up on quick play just to see what there is without unlocking any, and theres a good selection.. it also allows me to import the songs from my other guitar hero games: Metallica, World tour (4) and GH 5, but it also allows you to use GH greatest hits, and band hero as well....so all in all, there's a pretty hefty track list which should keep me amused for a while..

The thing that sets this music game apart from the rest is there's actually a proper story where you have to take the ordinary band members, and transform them into powerful versions of themself to help reclaim a "legendary" guitar.. You do this by playing setlists for each person and you have to achieve a set amount of stars, to enable them transform, and each one has a unique ability that you can use in quickplay+ so gives the game a bit more variety

I'm loving this so far, and because its mainly a rock setlist, its my type of music

Get this.

8.5 out of 10... \m/

Halo Reach

I wasn't drawn in by the hype of Halo Reach, I just wanted it for something different to play online.

I've played about 5-6 missions of the campaign and I'm playing it on normal. The graphics are good, the story is a bit vague at the moment but I know that it will improve the further I get...so I'm looking forward to putting more time into this.

I ventured into the online mode and went into Matchmaking and did a team slayer (basically, team deathmatch) and I got confused by the controls (as I was used to Modern Warfare 2 controls) so every time I wanted to Zoom, I threw a grenade and every time I wanted to Melee someone, I zoomed in, and inevitably got killed... However, once I got to grips with the controls, our team won, and I was the top killer on our team with 18 kills... So all in all not a bad first match.

I've not actually put too much time into Multiplayer, but I will, although everyone will be insanely good at it already so I will probably get pwn'd pretty badly...

I'd give Halo a 7 out of 10 so far.

F1 2010

Played F1 2010 and I've quite enjoyed it. Upon starting a career, I stupidly decided to play a 7 season career, at 100% race distance, which also meant full length practice and qualifying sessions.

I am currently waiting to do my 3rd race and even though the difficulty is on hard, and I'm at a rubbish team (Virgin-Cosworth) I am still qualifying top of the grid, winning the race with no difficulty at all, and even lapping a lot of the field. Now, given that Virgin-Cosworth are one of the lower teams, this should not be happening, so I am not finding this much of a challenge, which is a shame.

One noticeable absence is the lack of commentary, I don't want to have my geordie race engineer telling me where my team mate is (usually back of the pack) for 58 laps.......

I had a go online with my brother earlier and we had a couple of races, and I put all the rules/flags onto full etc, to make it as authentic as possible. Again, there is no co-op so my brother cant be on the same team as me, and we cant race against AI, only other humans.

One thing that we both agreed on, is that the damage is not that good.... Normal F1 cars, take hardly any contact and it can mean the end of a race, but on this, the cars can take more punishment even when the damage limit has been set to full. Going back to the flags/rules, we found it laughable that if I was in front of my brother, and I broke suddenly (on purpose so he'd crash into me), HE got the warning for causing a collision, and not me... and if he spun on a corner and I waited for him a bit further along the track, when he came within view of me, I got a warning for illegal blocking...!??! so there are a few drawbacks with this game, but overall... Its a pretty respectable 7.5 out of 10

Fifa 2011

Fifa 2011 found its way to me yesterday and I started on the "Career" mode today and set up a "Virtual Pro" as a Goalkeeper. The first thing I have to say is that when you are playing as a goalkeeper, the Computer AI is totally inept as they hardly pass, and they run into defenders or try flashy tricks to beat people which doesn't work, and its actually quite boring as the game just gets played in midfield. Here is an example of what I mean:
First game was a friendly against Albacete  and in the whole 90 mins I didn't touch the ball once and it finished 0-0.
The 2nd game was another friendly against Charlerois and again, in the 90 mins I didn't touch the ball once and we won 1-0.
The final pre-season friendly was against Bayern Munich and after 90 mins, I had let in 2 (stupid) goals and we lost 2-0.

Another thing I have to have a bit of a gripe about, is the lack of online co-op (2 humans v the CPU over Xbox Live). I cannot understand for the life of me, why Fifa still does not contain online co-op. PES2010 allows you to do this, Hell, even "Three Lions" on the original Xbox allowed you to do humans vs CPU over Xbox live.

I don't want to play against my brother online, I want to be on the same team as him. SORT IT OUT EA!!!!

My overall opinion of what I've played so far is a rather mediocre 6.5 out of 10 so I'm hoping with some more game time, this will improve a bit.