lost in games

It’s Christmas time and the social gatherings skyrocket. For some reason going to people’s flats and houses during the christmas holidays feels right. Board games are almost always part of the agenda in these gatherings and these involve both the female and male population.

Now, however you can have as much fun on your TV. I am talking about entertainment games like “Scene it?” on the 360. This is a trivia question game on movies. No killing, no racing, no football. Just questions on movies. Sounds boring it?

Far from it. I had friends over the weekend, went to two different flats and Scene it? was a hit. The best piece of entertainment for some time now. I think since last december when people came over for Wii Sports.

There isn’t much to tell about how the game is played. Just that you are given multiple answers to answer a specific question. These can range from a Billboard of a movie slowly being completed and you need to answer for which movie this is for. The speed of the answer will determine how many points you get. Another popular variation is when you are shown a short video clip of a movie and then asked questions about the specific scene and the movie in general.

The game comes with 4 good quality wireless buzzers (you can also use your existing 360 controllers) which were also a big hit with my friends. The whole package is GBP35. If you are looking for a good game which will interest both women and men i definitely recommend Scene it?. It has a database of 1800 questions so it should keep you occupied over the holiday season. Hopefully there will also be additional downloadable questions sometime next year so as to keep people using those superb buzzers.

P.S If you own a PS2, there is the game called Buzz which is trivia game but with more general knowledge questions. It too has 4 buzzers but these are wired. But it still good from what i hear.

After 2 days of seminars, i am back to work and have a ton of emails and work to do plus some personal stuff. Basically i am a bit swamped.

Just managing to write a bit after playing a bit more Anno. I am playing the story mode where you are given missions to complete in order to move to the next stage. It is basically a tutorial (the first two chapters out of a total of 5). It is good at what it does. I mean it is good for learning the ropes.

To be honest however i prefer the “free role” where you are not restricted on what you need to do. I suppose the continuous mode in the game represents this but still the story could have been handled a bit better. Don’t know how. The thing is the story mode may get a bit boring after a while. Only time will tell.

Don’t get me wrong though. This is a superb game and i still can’t believe i am playing it on the DS of all consoles! It has also up to 4 multiplayer mode. Fortunately i have a few people inteterested in these management games so we may have a go.

Anyway, have to go. Tomorrow!

I was away at a seminar yesterday and i will be away again today so i haven’t been able really to post anything good.

But i do want to write a few words about the new game i am now playing on the DS. It’s a strategy management title where you are given some resources and are told to settle the new world.

The game has a story mode where you are given missions which need completion in order to be given the next one.

After a few hours playing it my first reaction was, i can’t believe i am playing such a game on a portable console. And i can’t believe it is actually any good. I am still in Chapter 1 (out of 5) so i have a lot to see but i like the interface and options. I don’t like the small screen as in strategy games like this one you wantto able to watch the area for any alerts or new ideas for building.

Anyway, my first impressions are really positive and it is the sort of game i haven’t played in a long long time. Good stuff.

I bought the first (in the series) Burnout game the day i purchased my PS2. One of the few driving games i love playing and the new one is coming out next year. MTV Multiplayer’s Stephen Tottilo had some “hands on time” with the game.

Usually when I am playing a game I write down my first impressions and then later on a mini review once I have completed it. With Portal however it all happened in one day.

I was at a friend’s place yesterday when I decided to have a go at Portal to see what the fuss was all about. The gaming world had been buzzing lately about this surprise hit, one of the 5 games found in Valve’s Orange box.

The game starts you off with the female computer voice making the introductions and giving you a rundown of what you have to do. You are given a portal gun with which you can place portals on surfaces be they walls, ceilings, floors. When you go inside one portal you exit the other. Place boxes on switches to open doors, go through portals to get to non accessible areas and so on. It is a FPS puzzle game which plays a lot with the 3 dimensional environments.

The game does a great job of easing you into it although I did find that it leaves the best part of it until near end of the game. It only really starts to be challenging and mind blowing from the 16^th-17^th level onwards, out of a total of a total 19.

What I really loved about this game is that it basically has only a handful of variables to consider when tackling a situation but it still manages to challenge you to find the way to solve it. It is a not a trial and error puzzle game. Everything you do is logical and once you get into how the game works, figuring it out becomes second nature but it never loses its magic and thrill when you are solving a specific puzzle.

It has a story to tell but it is more abstract than actual and is loosely set in Half Life’s world. It is a preview on how this portal gun and puzzles will be implemented in Valve’s later games.

The game will take you around 5 hours to complete and it will never frustrate you. I got stuck in one particular situation for around 30 to 45 minutes only because I failed to “read the instructions”. Completely my fault.

Much has been said about the humour of the female computer voice but to be honest I did not pay any attention to it (except for the last level) as I was too engrossed in the puzzles so I cannot give an opinion on that.

It is a short but charming game which comes truly alive in the later stages. I don’t think I have ever played a game on a console before where I would just pause and just walk up down “calculating” in my head the solution to a puzzle. A refreshing game that plays tricks with your mind. You will never see a room the same way again.

A few weeks ago I got the Eye Camera together with the Eye of Judgement. The camera feels more solidly built than the 360 one and also has a microphone. Looks like another good hardware product from Sony.

As for the Eye of Judgement, for those who do not know, it’s a trading magic card board game. The game comes with a cloth which acts as the board and there are 9 boxes on it. The first player who controls 5 of these boxes wins. How do you control the boxes? On your magic cards you have creatures you can summon, spells you can cast and also other “utility” cards. Remember that all these are actually stuff you setup on your table. Now here is where the PS3 comes in. You setup the new PS3 eye camera so that it is overlooking the cloth/board. As you place the cards in each box the camera scans the cards (think barcode) and displays an animated image on the TV set of the creature or spell of the card. Then you make the decisions on who is attacking who and so on. All these are being shown and processed by the PS3 on the TV set with animated cut scenes.

One issue I had with the game was that the camera did not always recognise that the card was on the board and kept asking me to place it when it was already there. You need to have some proper lighting as it really affects this card recognition. Also the games made me feel that it is incomplete as there are extra cards coming out and are sold separately. I like having the complete version of a game and not having to keep up with a constant stream of expansion packs especially so soon after the game is released.

The fact that I played the game once and never got back to it is indicative of the impressions I have of the game. It is a hassle to setup compared to other videogames and I don’t want to play it alone, either online or against the computer. I only want to play it when someone else is in the room.

It seems to me that Eye of Judgement tries to come off as a videogame when in practice it’s just the same board game it always was. You are better off getting the standalone camera package.

I was always aware of the Ratchet & Clank series on the PS2 but for some reason i never played one. This time around with PS3 titles in short supply i finally bought my first game in the series.

After a couple of hours i can honestly say WOW and smile at the same time. WOW because the game is simply beautiful. Closer to an animated film than any game has managed before. The game does showcase some of the PS3’s power with the background having buidlings collapse and ships constantly moving around with the engine handling everything effortlessly.

What i have loved so far is the weapons and i cannot stress how important the upgrade of weapons is. I am not usually looking to collect all items in a game but because i want to upgrade my weapons i explore the levels to find as many bolts and leviathan souls as possible. My puny gun has now been fully upgraded and is a blast to use. And there so many options of weapons to use just a click away.

With an easy to manage inventory system you are always trying new things even if the game does not require you to do so to progress. Although the game’s checkpoints appear to get more spaced out as i go along it is still a pretty easy game so far.

I am thinking of which weapons to upgrade next and what their effect will be. Can’t wait to get home and play some more. That is a sign of a good game.

The game is video reviewed at Gametrailers (9.4/10) and it looks amazing. The single player story might be short but it is incredibly intense and satisfying with replayability of the game on harder modes. And the graphics…. Sure graphics are not everything but when they are these good you have to wonder.

As far as the multiplayer is concerned it seems only Halo 3 can rival this game. The maps’ design and the new perk system take this game to another level. My only concern is with the serious lag problems the Beta version had. Hopefully these have been sorted out.

The regular version of the game is being released today but the Limited Edition on the 9th of November.

A friend got it for me in London on release date and he brought it over on Saturday. Right now i have completed about 16% of the game so i have a lot more to do and see. For those who have not played the series before, Metroid Prime is a platform adventure with a lot of exploration to do with some shooting you have to do along the way. Your main character is Samus, a female bounty hunter.

The series was never supposed to be nor pretended to be a shooter. However with Corruption the Metroid series has moved closer to the FPS genre as probably Retro Studios (the developers) want to showcase the Wii’s controls. The game itself is solid but adds nothing new to the previous iterations on the Gamecube. However, i have read that the game does improve considerably after the first quarter. You will move from planet to planet as you get satellite uplinks on your objectives. As you progress through the game you get armour and weaponry upgrades which give you access to locations you could not previously visit. One cool new feature is the use of your spaceship. You use it to move from location to location and also you give it coordinates to perform bombing runs in open air locations while you are on the ground. It is like your spaceship is your sidekick. Nice touch. The musical score is one of the things i love about the game while on the other hand the boss battles do get on my nerves but bosses are part of the Metroid history.

Now to the main issue. Controls. The controls are mosty great. I have the advanced settings enabled where you move Samus using the nunchuck with the wiimote controlling your gun. Moving and aiming becomes intuitive after while. I have some issues getting a lock on enemies and then for some reason losing it which is really annoying especially as you lose the enemies from the screen. Furthermore the - and + buttons are very inconvenient to use due to their position on the Wiimote when you want to enter hypermode or quickly scan a boss and find out its weakness. There are other uses of the motion controls such as using the nunchuck for the grappling device for taking enemies’ shields for example.

Aside from a couple of issues however i have to admit this is the best control set-up i have experienced on a console for a FPS game. Going back to thumbsticks on my 360 and PS3 makes me feel i am going back in time, the dark ages. After putting the PSP into good use it seems it is the Wii’s turn now with Metroid Prime: Corruption. It was about time!

Ok, i have played the demo and i wasn’t really drawn into it but with humour like this i am going to give this game another shot. Very funny stuff if you like the Simpsons. Check out the clips below and you will know what i mean.

Trailer 1

Trailer 2 

Trailer 3