Red Faction: Guerrilla review (multi)

There’s nothing like a dash of soviet imagery to set the tone for a game

*Since trying the multiplayer I've decided to put up the overall score slightly.

Background

Back in 2001 the original ‘Red Faction’ was released on the PS2, PC and Mac by Volition Inc. The game pioneered a new and ambitious engine known as the Geo-mod engine which allowed players to actively sculpt the environment by tunnelling through it. The geo-mod engine revolutionised how players thought about the game environment allowing multiple dynamic entrance points to any given scenario. The game took place on Mars in the year 2075 within the mines of galactic megacorp Ultor. Red Faction saw the protagonist Parker thrown into a full scale uprising against the Ultor Corporation when a guard kills a miner in front of him and a full scale riot breaks out. The intro to this game was incredibly well done and did a fantastic job of immediately drawing you into Parker’s universe. Furthermore, the game actually managed to maintain this high quality of storytelling through strong narrative and impressive scripted events. It wasn’t just the single player experience that shone though; the multiplayer was pretty fantastic as well. Although I never personally owned the game (never had a PS2) I have many fond memories of visiting friends houses so I could get another shot from this fantastic game.

It’s like Half-life all over again only this time you don’t have to feel bad about slaughtering Barney

On the back of the success of ‘Red Faction’ it wasn’t long before we saw a sequel. Red Faction 2 was released in October 2002 on both PS2 and PC. Unfortunately the sequel held very little in common with the original in regards to plot or overall quality. Instead of the more free-roaming style of the original, Red Faction 2 favoured a more linear on the rails approach, which needless to say disenfranchised many of the originals fans. The main storyline took place on Earth and followed a group of nanotech infused soldiers in their exploits. The only, rather tenuous link to the original was that the soldiers in the game had the nanotechnology that had been introduced in Red Faction. A more cynical man might suggest that this game wasn’t developed as a sequel, but was labelled as such to increase sales. I can’t personally comment on this one as I never had the displeasure of playing it, but I take it on good word that this was indeed a metric tonne of ass juice.

Don’t look at me… it’s too shameful

Intro
Considering the sort of pathetic whimper of a game that was RF 2, there were many people who were pretty sceptical about Red Faction: Guerrilla (myself included). If anyone out there is still maintaining that level of scepticism it’s my great pleasure to inform you that you need do so no longer. Volition have in fact gone completely the other way with this one. Where RF 2 was an unrelated, plain on the rails FPS; Red-Faction: Guerrilla is a massive, exciting, sandbox style direct sequel to the original. While this is a direct sequel, don’t expect to get what you’ve become accustomed to with previous Red-Faction titles. This is a completely different type of game to its predecessors… it’s also a lot better.

Boom bitches

The Engine
One would argue that perhaps the most important improvement to RF:G is the fantastic Geo-mod 2.0 engine (in combination with the standard Havok physics). The focus this time has been shifted from destructible landscapes to dynamically destructible structures. Now if you’ve played as many games as I have, you’ve doubtless seen lots of destructible structures in other titles. The thing is, you haven’t really, not on this scale. RF: G takes everything you know and expect from destructible scenery, defecates on it, puts it in a rocket, fires said rocket into the Sun… then the Sun explodes and everything you’ve ever known and loved is consumed by the glorious flame. Every material in this game has been modelled to break apart realistically on impact, every building has been designed brilliantly with key structural supports and weaknesses. When you destroy a building in this game, you tear it down piece by piece. Often you’ll find buildings shudder and creak for a few moments before finally becoming unstable and collapsing (Note: this is the closest any game has brought me to climax ). This is most definitely the Angelina Jolie of physics engines.

This game gives me happy times in my pants

Story

Fifty years have passed since the original Ultor riots and Mars has changed a great deal in that time. The whole surface has been terraformed in order to sustain life and to allow full scale planetary mining. Unfortunately, in the fifty years since the fall of Ultor a new equally sinister organisation known as the EDF has seized control of the planet and its workforce, once again forcing the people of Mars to work in unreasonable conditions for unreasonable hours (oh the martianity!). Needless to say, the people of Mars are once again rising up and fighting for their rights (to party). This is where you come in; you take the role of a miner named Alec Mason who is pulled into the conflict almost immediately on his arrival on the planet. As the game starts you meet your brother who straight away tries to recruit you into the Red Faction. At this point you have no intention of fighting the man or fighting for the people, you are just there to mine. However this dream is shattered when the EDF kill your brother in front of you and then attempt to kill you because of your relationship. As a result of all of this, you are unwillingly forced into the Red Faction and into bringing down the EDF. Mars’ surface is divided into six sectors (Parker, Dust, Badlands, Oasis, Free Fire Zone and Eos), each of which need liberating individually; I’ll go into this deeper later on in the review. Aside from the EDF and the colonists there is also a third presence on Mars’ surface known only as the Marauders; you don’t know much about them to begin with but they become a large part of the plot later on. Now, nobody is going to win any awards for the script of this game, but for what it is, it’s pretty good. It’s important not to expect the story to act as anything more than a pretext for this game, after all this is a game about blowing shit up.

Think of the hammer as the physical embodiment of your in game schlong (or boobs, I’m all for equal opportunities)

Game play

In a game where the sole emphasis is on destruction the most important concern should be, is the destruction satisfying. I can gladly say that this game achieves something far beyond satisfying. Every glorious moment of in game action feels close to masturbatory in its sheer odious pleasure (It almost feels sinful). This is largely due to the incredible physics engine that underpins the whole experience, but thankfully there is also a really good game to accompany it. As mentioned above, each of the surfaces six sectors needs liberating from the EDF presence. Achieving this goal is a multi-facetted feat requiring completion of story missions, destruction of key structures and a number of side quests for the Red Faction. My personal favourite task is taking down the EDF structures. In each case it is completely up to you how you go about bringing the enemy down, whether that means placing charges around the structure, driving through it, firing rockets at it or disintegrating it with nano-bots (we’ll talk about that later).

Each sector has two gauges assigned to it, one that shows the level of EDF control in the sector and another that indicates Red Faction moral within the sector. Bringing down the EDF within any given sector requires you to bring their level of control to zero before banishing them within the context of a story mission. The moral gauge has a number of affects on the game environment; these include the amount of salvage you acquire from completing missions, the amount of ammo you receive from ammo crates and how ready guerrilla fighters are to jump to your aid during combat. While these things aren’t necessary for your progression through the story, they do make things a little easier. There are a number of ways of bolstering moral, but generally speaking it involves destroying enemy propaganda and completing Guerrilla missions. It is possible to lose moral by dying or by accidentally killing colonists, but for the most part you won’t need to worry about it. The Guerrilla missions come in a number of different guises, each of which is pretty fun to play. Listed below are all of the types of Guerrilla action:

Defense: In these missions you help groups of Red faction fighters defend valuable locations from EDF assaults. These missions for the most part appear randomly on the map when you are driving around and are only available for a short period of time.

Controlled demolition: These missions require you to destroy buildings as quickly as possible with whatever weapons are prescribed to you. This is all about using your noggin along with a good deal of brute force to get the job done.

Convoy: Often you’ll get hailed on the airwaves as nearby EDF vehicles try to get between locations with valuable information. Not a big fan of these ones but there’s no punishment for not doing them, so I don’t begrudge their existence

Collection: These missions require you to find valuable vehicles scattered around the map and bring them back to the nearest safe house as quickly as possible. Often become more difficult than you’d expect as legions of EDF attempt to stop you from reaching your location.

Collateral damage: In these missions you find yourself at the helm of a rocket launcher mounted on the back of an old junker being driven by a crazed old Martian. The aim here is to cause as much destruction to EDF property as possible along a pre set path. Needless to say, these missions are epically good fun.

Heavy Weapon: These missions require you to distract large numbers of enemy soldiers with a ridiculously powerful weapon as your team mates infiltrate nearby buildings.

It’s like GTA and Jerry Brookheimer had sexy times and gave birth to a beautiful baby game

Any good demolitions expert knows that the key to success is a good arsenal of tools to achieve their goals. Apparently Volition Inc are well aware of this also with one of the most awesome set of weapons in any game ever being on offer in RF:G. To begin with you find yourself equipped with a set of remote charges, an assault rifle and a kick arse hammer. Each of the games weapons can be upgraded on exchange of salvage and more, increasingly destructive weapons become available later on as you complete guerrilla actions and reach certain plot points. To begin with I found myself mostly switching between the assault rifle and the remote charges, trying to balance the killing with the destruction. As I progressed though I actually began to find that the hammer was particularly satisfying to wield as it could competently tackle both structures and guards and look really good doing it. I think the point where I really completely bought into this game though was when the nano forge was introduced. The nano forge is a rifle that fires a swarm of nano robots at any given target and tears it apart into its constituent parts. I still find myself giggling with churlish glee every time I think about taking out one of the games bridges by standing beneath it, disintegrating the supports and wank… watching the ensuing chaos. Other high points include the arc welder (A gun that generates a stream of electricity that can branch out and kill multiple enemies at once) and the thermo-baric rocket launcher (a gun so powerful that it can blast apart entire buildings in one blast). You can only ever carry four weapons at the time (one of which will always be the sledgehammer) meaning that you have to carefully consider which weapons you are most likely going to need for any given mission. Each of the games weapons is great fun to use (in my experience) and make for one helluva gun fight.

Cool guys don’t look at explosions

RF: G also succeeds in providing a fantastic array of interesting and unique vehicles to drive around the landscape. There is a great deal of different types of vehicle classes available for you drive across Mars’ surface, ranging from 4x4’s to sports cars, from taxi’s to heavy mining vehicles. Perhaps the most fun to use vehicles in this game are the giant mechanical walkers. Nothing can stand in the way of these bad boys (not even Chuck Norris); buildings are torn asunder as if they were made of crate paper as you stride forward wailing your massive mechanical arms. As one of my friends correctly put it “it’s like one of those shit mech games only really, really f***ing good”. The Mars landscape feels like it has been designed to fun to drive around with bumps, jumps and falls scattered liberally across the landscape. All of the games vehicles handle relatively realistically and all of them are great fun to drive. In the latter portions of the game you'll find that a jet pack is introduced into the mix. This massively changes how you approach your missions, allowing you to be a bit more haphazard than before. It’s really hard to complain about the driving experience in this game and because of that I’m not going to.

*Edit: A lot of people have been complaining about the sluggish control of the vehicles in this game. Now while I did notice this, I can't say it was a problem for me. It is definitely an issue though and potential buyers do need to be aware of it if they're looking to make a purchase/rental, especially if they think it's the sort of thing that is likely to bother them.

Let the mayhem begin

The controls throughout are pretty good for the most part. The weapon selection system took a little getting used to begin with but over time I actually grew to really like it. To select weapons you have to hold RB (on the 360) and press A, X, Y or B to choose the one you want. It is then possible to quickly switch back to your previous weapon by a quick tap of RB. One thing that really doesn’t work in this game is the cover system, it’s far too fiddly to use and ends up feeling a bit redundant anyway in a world where your cover rarely stays upright for very long. I can’t help but feel that if they’d assigned the cover to the left trigger and gone for the Rainbow Six Vegas style use of cover it might actually have been really good. This aside I never felt myself getting frustrated by unresponsive controls or bad button placement. Everything pretty much flows the way it should.

Graphics

I’m kind of torn on the graphics in this game. The thing is, the resolution is really impressive, the characters well designed and all of the vehicles and structure are really well modelled. However the landscapes are pretty dull for the most part, there’s really not a lot to look at in terms of scenery or colour. I don’t know what else you could expect on a terraformed Mars though so I’m not sure that this complaint actually holds any water; either way it’s not a major quibble. One thing this game does suffer quite badly with though is pop up. Most of the time you don’t really notice the pop up because of the bumpy nature of the landscape hiding it, but when you do notice it, it is pretty ugly. I can’t help but think that if they’re going to render such plain landscapes, they should really make a more concerted effort to get rid of pop up. To make up for this they have made the explosions really jaw-droppingly beautiful though. The beauty of the destruction brought a single tear to my eye on more than one occasion.

Sooo beautiful!!!

Sound

The sound is this game is also worthy of note. Each of the games sound effects has been created with a great deal of love, especially the falling buildings. Each building has a different set of sounds based on what materials it has been constructed out of. The last few moments of a buildings existence are always a treat for the ears with each shudder beautifully reverberating through every part of its remaining support and echoing around the decrepit walls. What I would say though is that this game is not going to win any awards for voice acting. It’s not badly acted or anything; it’s just all a bit generic. I’m almost certain that it won’t bother all but the most picky among you.

Multiplayer


Red Faction: Guerrilla offers some of the best multiplayer I have ever played. Volition have gone to a great deal of effort here to produce a valuable and interesting multiplayer experience which to be honest, could have stood up as a stand alone title. there are a number of different game modes on offer here with the standard set of death match variants and a capture the flag mode. Also included in the mix are modes where the emphasis is shifted to destruction (as you would expect really). One particularly interesting mode has each team assigned with base buildings to protect from the enemy. Upon building destruction these buildings can be rebuilt with the use of a special gun, (not unlike how the link gun is used in unreal tournament 2004) allowing for fiercely tactical matches where you have to be clever about choosing when to attack or defend. As I mentioned above, in the single player mode you get to unlock a jet pack later on in the game. Now in the multiplayer they've massively extended the list of backpacks that you can use. There are cloaking packs, healing packs, damage increase packs, speed packs, impulse packs (similar to the jet pack, but they send you up to a great height in one press), rhino packs (that allow you to ram through buildings), vision packs (that highlight all of the foes on the map) and concussion packs (which send out a small area wave that blast nearby foes off of their feet). I think that's all of them but there's so many of the bloody things it would be easy to miss one out. The backpacks really make this game stand apart from other online experiences as they do massively change the state of play in regards to tactics without making the game unbalanced or cheap. the game also includes an offline wrecking crew mode where you take it in turns to reap as much destruction as possible on the landscape within a minute. The wrecking crew mode also contains a number of interesting variants, which are a good deal of fun to work through with your friends (presuming you have any). I have a sneaking suspicion that RF: G may well end up being the next online multiplayer phenomenon; it certainly deserves to be.

Summary

In my personal opinion this game offers pretty much everything you could ever reasonably ask for from a sandbox shooter. The environment is vast, the missions are fun, the interface is easy to use and there’s a lot of depth of experience (but it’s never force fed to like another game that I shan’t name). This game isn’t preachy and it’s not going to change the way you see the world (or Mars for that matter); what it will do is give you hours and hours of unmitigated fun in both a vast single player campaign and it's thrilling multiplayer component. I just hope that we see a lot more from the geo-mod 2.0 engine as it really is superb. It’s been a long while since I’ve wanted to sit people down while I’ve been playing a game and say “look at this… man did you just see that!?”. I really can’t wait to see what Volition pull out of their hats next. Anyway you’ll have to excuse, I’m off to play some more Red Faction.

Scores

Story: 4/5 (it’s not exactly inspired or anything, but it does the job)
Game play: 4.9/5 (Every moment is truly glorious, it’s just a shame that the cover system wasn’t better)
Sound: 4.8/5 (The dialogue isn’t exactly amazing but the sounds of shuddering buildings as they slowly crumble more than make up for that)
Multiplayer: 5/5 (I think I might actually prefer the multiplayer on this to Halo 3)
Overall: 4.7/5 (There’s an awful lot of bang for your buck with this title… there’s also a good deal of boom, kerplow, pchhooorrr and smash)

Thumbs up purchase… seriously, go and buy this game right away. Go and give them money so they can make more!

Are video games losing the plot?

There's a trend that has appeared recently in the mainstream video game market that is causing me and doubtless many others a great deal of distress. I'm talking about a trend more insidious than happy slapping, more shocking than school shootings and more pungent than a gaming convention. I am, of course talking about the trend that is cliffhanger endings.

Now, I'm not fundamentally against cliffhanger endings in all forms of media. As an example, the JJ. Abrahams TV epic 'lost' contains a cliffhanger nearly every week. The point is though, that it is weekly. If your favourite game ends with a cliffhanger, you're most likely looking at 2-3 years at least before the narrative is completed, by which time you've probably forgotten what exactly was happening or you just won't care anymore.

Ok, so computer games for the most part aren't particularly well known for strong narratives to begin with. Stories within games for the most part seem to act as pretexts for the action within the game, not unlike a bad Hollywood movie. A lot of the time this is sort of acceptable because the quality and depth of the experience on offer distracts you from the storyline. I do think this is pretty sad though, a good narrative can really give a game an extra kick making it shine just a little bit more than it's competitors. Would you kindly take your minds back to 2007, back to the release of Bioshock. I'm sure those of you who enjoyed the game did so largely because of a well structured narrative and a well defined mythos. Furthermore they didn't kick you in the teeth by leaving the story unresolved when you reached its conclusion, although the ending was a bit lackluster.

Now in contrast think back to Halo 2, again this game had a fairly strong story throughout with a consistent mythology and a strong narrative train. However, I think what most of us take away from that game is the horrendous ending. Certainly, when I think back on it I don't think about how much I enjoyed the story, but instead on how I was removed from the experience just as it looked to be getting a lot more exciting. Halo 2 isn't the worst offender though. the one that really springs to mind in recent gaming history is Prince of Persia. I'm going to put the ending in spoiler markers so as not to ruin it for you.

Spoiler: The narrative ends with you literally undoing everything you've done within the game and releasing the main bad guy from his prison, with the words "to be continued" written on the screen. I find it hard to put into words how angry this made me, probably about as angry as I was when I found out that My Name is Earl had been cancelled

I think the most offensive part of the broken story in this game is that after its release, they announced that they would be releasing DLC to fix the story at a later date, meaning that if you'd rented (as I had) you'd have to pay to get the game again and then pay for material that you'd most probably only want to play once. The idea of paying to get a good story is just ridiculous anyway though. Can you imagine if your favourite book had an original version, but then the author decided that it wasn't up to scratch and then released a redux version where they fixed the story but charged a greater price for it? I suspect that for most of you, it would cease to be your favourite story because you would feel tricked and betrayed.

So I guess what I'm essentially driving at, is that good games deserve good stories. Most gamers are pretty discerning when it comes to deciding what kind of experience that they want from a game and for a lot of them that includes a good storyline. Apart from anything, if you get a good story out of it, it feels a lot less like you've been wasting your time. I hope that this problem starts to dissolve in the near future, because as far as I'm concerned the gaming market is slowly growing up and should probably stop reading 'Harry Potter' and should move on to some John Steinbeck instead.

Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on the Dark Athena review (multi)

I feel that before I start writing the review I should give it some context… this is the fourth time I’ve started writing it (all previous attempts seemed to mysteriously disappeared into the ether). If this review comes across as slightly jaded that’s probably why

Background (Note: this section is entirely about the films so if you want to get straight into the review skip ahead to the next section)

The year 2000 saw many important events; Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi dies of a stroke, the billionth Indian citizen is born and in South Nigeria 250 locals are blown up whilst trying to scavenge gasoline from a broken petroleum pipeline. However the year 2000 saw one event more important than all of these… the year 2000 saw the release of ‘Pitch Black’ and the creation of the most badass criminal in all of the known universe, Richard B. Riddick. The role of Riddick was taken up by Vin Diesel (the only man to ever win an arm wrestle with a fully grown gorilla without the use of tranquilizers) who seemed to fit the character like a hand in a glove. Pitch Black picks up with Riddick after being rather embarrassingly captured by his arch enemy, a mercenary by the name of William J. Johns (Played by Cole Hauser). As you might expect though, the tables are soon turned as the ship that he is captive on crash lands on a desert planet allowing Riddick to escape. It’s not long before Riddick’s position as most badass thing on the planet is jeopardized though, as the ships crew soon find out that they’re sharing the landscape with a horde of carnivorous photophobic aliens.


This is where it all started

Pitch Black was met with a fairly mixed critical response, the crux of the issue seeming to be whether people bought into Riddick’s character. I personally found it to be a rather enjoyable film (although not without flaws), largely due to the fact that you were never quite sure what Riddick’s intentions were, or whether he was in fact a greater threat than the alien scourge. One of the films trademarks are Riddick’s luminescent eyes (that allow him to see in darkness) which he explains he received in the galactic super prison, ‘Butcher Bay’. This story became the focus of the first Chronicles of Riddick game; Escape from Butcher Bay in 2005. I’ll discuss this game at some length within this review as AOTDA contains a re-mastered version of the original game. Unfortunately 2005 also saw the release of a rather less impressive specimen within the Riddick universe in the shape of a film named ‘The Chronicles of Riddick’. Alas they lost the plot slightly with this one, replacing all of Riddick’s subtle deadly charm with an over jumped generic action anti-hero with all the poise and grace of a drunken badger. Fittingly the film was met with a withering response, as while the film was a fairly solid action thriller, it lacked any of the depth or nuances that made ‘Pitch Black’ shine. Thankfully, Butcher Bay was spared this kind of critical Butchering as it was actually a stunningly good game… and so the actual review begins.

Escape from Butcher Bay


A rare gem on the Xbox platform

There’s probably a few of those amongst you wondering if it’s fair to be reviewing a game from 2005 by today’s standards. Gladly I can inform you that for the most part, yes it is. Escape from Butcher Bay is nearly as impressive now as it was back in 2005 which is really a testament to the solid game design employed by Tigon Studios (Vin Diesel’s own game studio… how f***ing awesome is that?).


Papa always said "if you can't trust anyone else, you've got to do the job yourself"

Story

As the name implies, the plot of EFBB focuses on Riddick trying to escape from the infamous Butcher Bay. Of course this isn’t as easy as breaking out of your regular joint; Butcher Bay is the prison’s prison, it has been designed with criminals like Riddick in mind (Riddick is a better class of criminal though). Before too long, Riddick is causing all kinds of hell within Butcher Bay’s walls. The story throughout is fairly solid with the only major gripe being that the prison paying to house Riddick doesn’t really make a lot of sense. This aside, I enjoyed the narrative all of the way through the games 10-13 hour campaign. The in game dialogue and voice acting is all of a supreme quality, with one of the highlights coming in the form of the vocal stylings of John Di Maggio (The voice of both Bender from Futurama and Marcus Fenix from Gears of War). It’s always pleasing to come across a game where quality writing has clearly been a focal point of the development process.

Gameplay

Ok, this is where we have to start making some allowances for EFBB taking into account its vintage. EFBB contains a mixture of stealth and FPS gameplay which for the most part are separated into distinct sections. There have been a number of big changes to the FPS genre in the last couple of years, the most important of which being the fabled cover system. As you might expect EFBB lacks this feature to its slight detriment. Another aspect of this game that modern gamers may find irritating is the putridly stupid A.I. The enemies in this game are really, really dumb; it’s quite difficult to get across just how dumb they are. It’s not uncommon for the bad guys to start walking in circles or into walls or to start shooting at absolutely nothing. It can be quite difficult to predict their movements at times, as their movement patterns are as erratic as those of a fish in an electrified tank which contains water laced with speed. My only other slight gripe with the game play is the weapon selection system. To select weapons in this game you have to press the right shoulder button (on the 360) to bring up a circular menu. You then have to hover over the weapon you wish to equip with the right thumb stick. This would be fine were it not for the fact that the menu is quite fiddly and imprecise and you often end up dying because you can’t change weapons in time. Despite all of these qualms though, EFBB is a bloody brilliant game. The FPS sections of the game are pretty standard fair, you shoot things, things shoot you and a bloodbath ensues. Gun play is pretty solid throughout with all of the guns feeling chunky and powerful enough to satisfy most FPS junkies.

"I told you the food court would be closed"
"Can we please not make this into an argument?"
"I'm just saying that if you'd listened..."

In my personal opinion though, where this game really stands out is the stealth sections. The stealth mechanics in this game are absolutely sublime. There are very few things more satisfying than hiding in the shadows, stalking a guard as he passes you and then stabbing him in the neck with a screw driver (or is that just me). You never have to worry too much about making a lot of noise as when you are stealthing you can go into stealth mode, which allows you to move silently as you stalk your prey. Most of the lights around the prison can be shot out allowing you to sneak by enemies with ease. You’ll often find that if a guard discovers a smashed light, they’ll get out their flashlights and will actually become more vigilant than usual making things more difficult for you.

Would you like your guard diced or sliced?

The game also contains some really good hand to hand combat often throwing you into fist fights with multiple enemies. There’s also a couple of awesome mech scenes thrown in to keep you entertained. Throughout your quest for freedom, you’ll be expected to talk to a number of your fellow inmates in order to gain favours from them. Of course they always expect something in return; this can vary from assassinating other prisoners to collecting moths for them. Some of these tasks are necessary for story progression where as others can get you useful equipment or information. For those collectable junkies amongst you, there are a number of themed cigarette packs to be found around the landscape in order to unlock concept art for the game. Overall the game play is a rich if slightly dated and very rarely disappoints.

Graphics

For the most part the graphics in this game are pretty darn impressive. They’ve been completely overhauled to meet the potential of the next gen consoles and for the most part they’ve achieved that goal. Obviously some of the level design is a little uninspired by today’s standards as it wasn’t originally designed for modern consoles. Thanks to the improved engine though, both the lighting and the polygon count have massively improved making the adventure look very at home on the new consoles. All of the in game characters have been re-designed and wouldn’t look out of place in any modern shooters. There are a few minor graphical glitches present in the form of dead polygons and slow texture loads but these are fairly rare and don’t detract from the game in any significant way.



Assault on the dark Athena


Riddick is back... only this time marginally more awesome

Story

The story in AOTDA picks up almost immediately after the events of EFBB with Riddicks escape vessel ironically once again being captured, only this time by a troop of rogue mercenary pirates. It’s established that Riddick has previously made acquaintance with the leader of the pirates and there is some animosity between them. I never felt that this was ever resolved very satisfactorily and found it to be quite disappointing. Thankfully though, once again the story is fairly solid with Riddick trying to escape the Dark Athena to do whatever it is that he does when he’s not escaping captivity (I’m never quite sure what it is he does when he’s not escaping). I don’t want to risk ruining the plot for you, but what I will say is that the story doesn’t all take place on the Dark Athena. The change of scenery in the latter portions of the game is quite pleasing and I found it to add some needed variety to the experience.

Gameplay

It’s the same as Butcher bay…

Ok, you also get some cool new weapons…

Well perhaps that analysis isn’t quite fair, but for the most part AOTDA is just a modernized expansion to EFBB. This is by no means a bad thing. You get an extra 10+ hours of game in a new setting and some cool new ways to eviscerate your enemies. The new blades (the shylaks) that Riddick uses are totally kick ass and make you feel even more deadly than ever before. On top of this, the new enemies (the drones) can be used as temporary gun turrets or can be controlled from remote terminals varying up the game play nicely. There’s also a return from the ever fantastic mech scenes. What else could a Riddick fan ask for?

Is this the face of a man that you want to piss off?

Graphics

Again, the graphics are pretty much the same as in EFBB but you can tell that it has been designed for modern consoles from the ground up. The level design is a lot more ambitious with a lot of the games aesthetic looking absolutely stunning (especially later on). The areas in this game have been developed with the same level of love as EFBB and they really do deliver in terms of style. The character design is up to the same high standard again, my only quibble is that the main enemy looks a bit weird (it’s quite hard to put into words, but she definitely doesn’t look quite right).

Multiplayer

Right, I’m going to keep this quite brief. The online multiplayer section of this game seems to be pretty functional and has a number of different modes to keep you occupied. I found that I wasn’t particularly engaged by it though, AOTDA is essentially a single player experience and the multiplayer element ends up feeling like a bit of an arbitrary grace. I guess in conclusion, I can’t really complain about it; it’s nice that it’s there and it seems pretty sturdy, it’s just not really my cup of tea. Maybe you’ll like it better.


This tactic is likely to get you killed, sure the A.I is stupid but if you stand in the middle of a room firing a gun they'll remove the gun barrels from their nostrils and dispose of you in no time

Conclusion

So, is it worth your hard earned cash? Well, bearing in mind all you get here for your money I certainly think so. You’re getting more than 20 hours of offline game play here and a fairly decent multiplayer experience to boot. If you’re anything like me, you probably watched ‘Pitch Black’ thinking “God he’s awesome, I wish I could be like him”. Now that I have the ability to be Riddick I couldn’t be much happier. Sure it’s a little dated and Riddick’s character is a little shallow, but this is all forgivable. The voice acting throughout is funny and convincing, the story is good, the game play is great and you have shylaks… tell me that this game is not worth your money. For those of you who are only really interested in the single player I’d recommend renting and then buying it if you decide that you actually like the multiplayer. I personally love this game, it does annoy me at times but then again so does my girlfriend and I’ve put up with her for longer than I care to think about (note: if you have to choose between this game and having a girlfriend then please choose the latter. Games are cool but they’re not very satisfying sexually… I take that back, Vin Diesel is a sexy man). Have fun with this one.

Story: 4/5
Graphics: 4.5/5
Gameplay: 4/5 (a little dated in places but still awesome)
Sound: 5/5 (the voice acting is really fantastic throughout)
Multiplayer: 3.5/5 (sturdy, just nothing special)
Overall: 4/5 (definitely worth your money)

Thumbs up rental at the very least! I urge all of you to try this game, there’s lots on offer here!

Long time no C++

Hello friends, enemies and randomers. It's been a while since I've posted on the blog and I thought I should probably laden you with a positive cornucopia of pathetic excuses... unfortunately I don't have any so I guess an apology will have to do. Needless to say, I am working to rectify this situation in the form of a review. So when can we expect to hear your oh so wise and entirely valid opinions gracing our fetid ungrateful ears I hear you ask. Well if things go to plan there should be a review of the 'Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on the Dark Athena' up by tomorrow my faithful subjects. Sorry it's been so long, I'm going to try my best not to hurt you like this again.

Keep gaming!!

Don' Shit Your Pants Review

Once every now and then a game comes along that redefines how you see the world; values are questioned and attitudes re-aligned. In games like this barriers are broken down, bridges are built and we as the gamers are united, in what can be almost be described as a spiritual appreciation of true art. However... Don't shit your pants is not one of these games. Don't shit your pants is a game in which your goal is quite literally to avoid defecating in your undergarments.


The unglamorous but functional menu screen to Don't shit your pants

Now some of you may be saying to yourselves
"I spend most days managing to avoid shitting in my pants. How could this possibly be a challenge?"
To those cynics I say
"Hey... cynics. Stop being cynical you cynical, cynical people. Give me a minute and I'll tell you how it can be a challenge to not poo yourself".

One important difference between Don't shit your pants and real life non-shitting is the control interface. Normally when you want to not shit yourself it's simply a matter of thinking "I need a poo now", initiating a stimulus of your motor neuron pathways, waiting for the signal to reach your legs, traveling to to the toilet via this process, initiating a stimulus of your motor neuron pathways, waiting for the signal to reach your arms and hands, removing pants (this may be more tricky if belts or zippers are involved), sending another electrical impulse, placing your posterior on the toilet seat and letting rip (This entire process can be considerably more difficult if you lack working arms or legs, or alternatively are not in proximity to a toilet). Note: Most of the steps listed above have been greatly simplified by our advanced level of evolution, whereby an abstract thought can be converted into a physical stimulus with virtually no effort. Compare this to the control interface in Don't shit your pants. You are incapable of any thought whatsoever so you require external stimulus in order to complete any action. Unfortunately the only stimulus available is a typeface at the other end of a series of wires. Worse still, you are easily confused by commands and can only respond to the simplest of requests. You have no lateral thinking reflex so if say you were asked to push when you were say, required to pull you would not be able to comply in any helpful manner. You have developed a very upset stomach meaning that you are working to a strict 40 second time frame, if the gamer assigned to help you through your struggle is a slow typist it's almost certainly brown trousers time. All things considered, it's a lot easier to avoid crapping yourself in the real world.


note: The crown is reserved for only experienced shitters

As a gamer I am used to controlling my in game avatar with the directional thumbsticks or indeed with a mouse and the W,A,S and D keys, so I must admit that at first, I found the typing element a little jarring. However once I'd adjusted to this new way of approaching in game control I found it to be a refreshing change from the norm. Unfortunately I often found that the game wasn't programmed to react to the scenario I'd created with it often giving messages such as "I don't know how to set us up the bomb" or "I don't know how to become a political activist, engage with the disenfranchised public on a crippling tax policy, win their trust on emotional issues, run for prime minister, get elected, develop a stock hold of nuclear weapons, go into hiding in an underwater base in the mid pacific, nuke America and China making it look like each had attacked the other, stay under ground as the nuclear holocaust ensues, emerge from hiding once radiation has reached safe levels in order to re-unite the scattered remnants of a broken humanity, become supreme emperor of the world and lead the world into a new era of peace and prosperity". needless to say that as a result of this I found my imagination was considerably stifled.


Sometimes in life you just can't avoid depositing waste in your leg receptacles

Fortunately Don't shit your pants makes up for these shortcomings in a number of ways. Firstly I'd like to point out how absolutely stunning the graphics are; not only is the game in full 3D perspective, all of the in game textures are crisp and the main character is well defined (at no point becoming indistinguishable from the surroundings or crowds of generic enemies). The in game sound is equally impressive with more than four midi sounds present in the games sound scape. The game has ten different endings, none of which feel cheap or tacked for no reason. Each ending will leave you fully satisfied but equally curious about what other vistas can be discovered. On top of all this there are also ten achievements to be discovered each of which will bring a smile to your face. There are also two costumes in the game, the second costume being unlocked after full completion.


Some gamers try to avoid the inevitable by hiding behind a wall of questions

So what can we conclude about Don't shit your pants? Is it worth pissing away your time on a game about shitting? Well in this game reviewers humble opinion... yes it is. It may not strictly speaking contain much of a narrative or indeed gameplay; but these features have become overrated in recent years pushing aside equally valuable game elements such as confusion, disorientation and frustration. I would argue that many of us have forgotten what it is to be a true gamer. Gone are the days when we would spend hours looking for keys because all of the rooms looked the same and the doors had the same texture as the walls. Gone are the days when in absence of a feasible solution to a puzzle we turned off our computers, climbed into the fetal position and cried onto the lino flooring for two hours. Gone are the days where we tried to masturbate over a pair of 8-bit breasts instead of going down to the off license and buying a porn mag because someone might see you. It's truly sad that these days have come to an end. I'm glad that Don't shit your pants has tried to right this collective wrong and return us to the glory days. One hopes that this is just the beginning of a whole new retro-revolution where the focus is no longer on gameplay, story or high end graphics but instead humour, charm and all round fun. Don't shit your pants may have a few drawbacks but all the same, it's hard not to recommend. This game is a shit load of fun and as such I suggest that everyone should try Don't shit your pants.

Thumbs Up!

Don't shit your pants is available for free at a number of online flash game websites for free. I've pasted a link to just one of the plethora of hosting sites below.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Rete/dont-shit-your-pants

Plants vs Zombies review

If you've previously read my review of Peggle on the 360, you're probably aware that I have a bit of a penchant for Pop Cap games. Normally I don't buy into the whole casual gaming phenomenon, but Pop Crack are different somehow. They seem to have an adept understanding of what it is that makes games fun and addictive; something that is missing from a large proportion of mainstream gaming. With this in mind, I'm going to try my best to give a fair and balanced review of Plants vs Zombies (no promises).
Pop Cap games... because you don't have the willpower to say no

Plants vs Zombies takes its roots predominantly in the tower defence genre with a few interesting twists thrown in along the way, in the form of a series of mini games. The basic concept of the game is that you're a home owner who is under attack from the zombie horde who have developed a taste for brains. On the guidance of your insane neighbour (Who wears a pan on his head and has a habit of of blurting out spouts of incoherent blather), like any rational person, you turn to your garden plants to act as your first line of defence. Gleefully your battalion of botanical bodyguards rise up to the challenge of taking the 'un' out of the 'undead'. Still with me?

In the absence of government intervention, only plants can be relied on to defend your brains

To begin with the selection of plants available to you is pretty limited, with new variants becoming available at the end of most levels throughout the campaign. Later on in the campaign, some more specialized plants become available for purchase from your neighbour's shop. The amount of different plants available to you throughout the game is pretty impressive and grants a fairly good depth of strategy. Initially you are only allowed to bring six plant variants into the level meaning that you have to choose your defenders carefully based on what strategy you intend to play. Throughout the campaign you are shown which zombies you can expect to be facing before the level begins, which allows you to tailor your strategy before the get go. As you progress through the game more plant slots become available for purchase making your decisions at the start of the level a little easier.

You're given free choice of which plants will be defending your valuable grey matter at the start of each level

The control interface is pretty intuitive, with you simply clicking on the type of unit that you want to use from the selection bar at the to top of the screen and then clicking again wherever you want to place it on the grid. As the zombies make their way down the screen they are restricted to one of five lanes so correct infantry placement is very important (unless of course you think you'd be better off without your brains).

In order to purchase your petal'd protectors you're required to gather sunshine whilst in game play. During daytime levels sunshine periodically falls from the sky for your use; however this isn't enough sunshine to fuel a chlorophyll powered army. Thankfully, to tackle this shortage of sunshine, sun flowers can be planted to periodically make your day just that little bit brighter. During night time levels you rely entirely on this source of light so defence of your flowery friends becomes an integral part of your success.

As you make your way through the campaign levels you are introduced to a myriad of different zombie types each with their own set of strengths and weaknesses (all with a desire to excavate your skull). Each of the characters is charmingly designed and comes with their own short back story written in the plants vs zombies almanac (these stories invariably run along the lines of "At some point he found a bucket and placed it on his head"). Every facet of this game is brimming with playful humour which makes progressing through a each level childishly gleeful. Each stage has a new layer of strategy to consider from the backyard where you are expected to defend yourself from pool venturing zombies; to the rooftop where you are limited to plant pots. These slight variants on game play add a decent level of depth to the game play, but unfortunately never really make the levels particularly challenging.

Herein lies the games main weakness; the campaign never gets particularly difficult. To be quite frank I only ever felt that the game was getting 'hard' during the last three levels. One of the trademarks of the tower defence genre is its punishing difficulty, so it's quite disappointing that Pop Crack have missed the trick here. Don't worry though, there is challenge to be found in the form mini games and puzzle levels. Here you can find plenty of interesting challenges from zombie attack levels (where the acquisition of brains becomes your primary concern) to a brilliant take on bejewelled. There are twenty mini game levels and twenty puzzle levels leaving you with plenty to work your way through.


The onscreen action can get pretty hectic at times, but it never gets too difficult with effective planning

So is Plants vs Zombies worth your money? Well... I certainly had a lot of fun with this title (and will continue to do so). The level of challenge will probably be a bit disappointing for the tower defence fans amongst you but there is plenty of substance here to make up for it. A lot of love has gone into crafting this game and it shows. The graphical presentation throughout is pleasing, the sounds are hilarious (I didn't know there where so may ways to say the word brains), the character design is charming, the concept is pleasantly insane and there's lots of different levels on offer. For £6.99 on steam (British price) you really can't question the value on offer here. One thing i would say though is, if you despise tower defence games, this probably won't convert you; it doesn't redefine the tower defence genre, it simply tackles it with a bit more flare. As for everyone else, use your brains and at least try the demo to see what you think; I think you'll like what you find.

Scores:
Gameplay: 4/5 (Great fun, but too easy)
Graphics: 4/5 (Charmingly designed; resolution could have been a bit higher though)
Sound: 4.5/5 (Hilarious dialogue and catchy music throughout)
Value: 5/5 (Lots on offer for a tiny price)
Overall 4.5/5 (Exactly the kind of casual gaming crack that I've come to expect from Pop Cap)

Thanks for reading.

Quick update

Hello peeps and peep-ettes. This is just a quick update to let you know that I am now posting my reviews on noobtoob as well as in my blog. I've decided that as a mark of courtesy I should probably upload to their site first in future, meaning that any reviews I do write will arrive here a couple of hours later than they do on noobtoob. I will however be reviewing the odd game from my back catalogue exclusively here along with my own infinitely wise insights into gaming culture, so please don't become too incensed. If you don't know what or who noobtoob are you should go and find out. I've linked the title of this post to their website and there's also a link on the right hand side of the page in the links section.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to be awesome!

Peggle portable

Well it's happened... Pop Cap games have made a final assault on my social life and released Peggle on the ipod Touch and iphone. It's the same game that we all know and love scaled down to fit on the smaller screen, with a few interface tweaks to make it work better on the format. If you own an ipod and you're not particularly bothered about ever doing anything ever again, then I strongly suggest that you purchase this app. It's a steal at just £2.99!

Spore review

Ok, what can I say about Spore. As you've probably noted from my previous blog posts (if you have indeed been reading them) is that I didn't come away from playing Spore feeling entirely positive about it; that is not to say that it isn't without some sizable merit. Spore first appeared on most people's radars at EA 2006 with a functioning demo of the creature creator tool and a demonstration of the creature stage. At the time audiences were wowed by the incredible technology behind the creature creator and somewhat impressed by the mind boggling concept of a gaming world where every inhabitant has been created by another player. It was promised that the game would involve you journeying from a simple multi-cellular organism to a species of planet conquering cultural behemoths and experiencing everything in between. The sheer ambition behind Spore's concept is not something that is often encountered in games and is definitely worthy of respect. Unfortunately as is often the case with highly ambitious projects, there seems to be a great deal of dissonance between the ambition and the actual result.


I'm going to start off by reviewing my favourite part of the Spore experience, the creature creator. This is where Spore really shines. The Spore creature creator consists a number of simple to use tools which allow you to create almost anything that you can imagine; anything from giant walking penises (a few examples, there were hundreds of these things online less than an hour after the creature creators release. Draw your own conclusions as to what this says about humanity.) to Tie fighters, from Wall-E to Goatse. All of the tools within the editor are incredibly intuitive allowing for maximum freedom. There are a number of default spine arrangements for you to work from but these can all be altered to meet your own vision (however grotesque or delightful that happens to be). You start off by choosing how long you want the spine of your creation to be, shaping it into your desired design and then choosing the body mass around around each segment of the spine. Once you've chosen your basic framework you can start to chose your creatures limbs (that is assuming that you're not trying to re-create the pillow man) and other features from a fairly wide selection of preset designs using the editors easy to navigate menus (these range from aesthetic features to practical features such as claws and wings, most of which adding specific attributes to your species). Each of these bodily extremities can also be heavily modified in terms of size, extension, direction of projection and their position. When you're happy with your creatures overall design it's time to bring them to life; this is where the real magic happens. You will be amazed as your creature starts to move around the environment just as you would have expected it to, with only a few exceptions where the creature appears to clip into itself or limbs seem to spaz around in random directions (for the most part this is the result of bad design rather than problems with the program). The results that can be achieved with the editor are truly wondrous and are clearly the work of a number of genius programmers (either that or at some point a deal with the devil was made for the base algorithms). It is almost worth buying the creature creator by itself just to marvel at the joyous result of years of work. Unfortunately Spore is meant to be more than just an editor, it is also meant to be a game and this is where things start to go awry.
What was originally promised of Spore was an epic evolution sim where you gradually evolved from a simple bacterial Spore to a fully fledged technological race. Unfortunately Spore completely misses the mark with each section of the game feeling entirely arbitrary. There are five sections within the game, most of which blatantly ripping off other (some would say better, more fleshed out games):

• The cell stage (flOw rip off)- a simple stage where you play as a bacterial creature who's aim is simple either survive as a herbivore, carnivore or omnivore by eating plants or smaller creatures and avoiding being eaten by bigger more dangerous creatures. As you progress through the stage your creature will gradually grow in size and will gain access to more body parts that will allow it to become better suited for survival. This stage is actually pretty fun, but is regretfully quite short lived (especially considering that this was many players favourite stage).
• The creature stage- as you emerge from the ocean and out of the cell stage into the creature stage you find yourself with a few slightly more advanced objectives. Your creature now has a nest which acts as your creatures base. Within your base you will find a number of your own species with which you can interact with; either by recruiting them to follow on your travels or by mating with them to add new features to your species. This is where just how arbitrary the in game evolution is becomes really evident. At any point during this stage you can completely reimagine your creature rearranging its limbs and adding new features. I personally found this rather dispelling with it somewhat undoing the narrative of my species. Your overall objective remains largely the same to the cell stage with you having to source food and survive attacks from the giant penis monsters that roam the landscape. At this point you have to choose whether to make other players creatures your prey (the fun option), or whether to befriend them by dancing and singing for them (the lame option). Wiping out other species is quite fun for a while (roughly 30 minutes in my case) but is on reflection pretty shallow. The path of the herbivore however... I'm not sure that this even constitutes a game; if singing, dancing and collecting plants sounds like a good game to you please feel free to put me straight. It is pretty interesting interacting with other players creations, but it never feels like a challenge to plough through this stage.
• The tribal stage (pathetic rip off of any given age of empires game)- this is where Spore starts to become really putridly bad. You are now tasked with controlling a small tribe of your species and are tasked with becoming the dominant species in a small area. This can either be achieved by warring with neighbouring tribes using rudimentary weapons (spears, fire staffs or bows. The depth to be found here is truly astonishing) or by converting them with the power of music. That's right you heard me, you take control of neighbouring tribes by playing instruments to them. While this may be Bob Geldof's idea of a wet dream, I am not impressed; this is lame... really really lame. Whichever way you choose to play through this stage the game play is horrendously shallow, requiring no tactical thought whatsoever. All you have to do in order to win is to have more guys than your neighbour; that is it. The whole interface during this stage is horrible also, especially the map that you use to navigate which for some reason works at some obscure angle (it's like they subscribe to the Escher school of map design). During this stage you can equip your creatures with a small number of different types of clothing and jewellery but there is very little customisation possible here. I can't think of anything good to say about this stage, it is completely abysmal and frankly barely deserves the title of "game". The only saving grace is that it's forgivingly short.
  
• The civilisation stage (can you guess what it is yet)- another disappointing attempt at emulating a better game, the civilisation stage sees your species in the battle for global domination. It is assumed at this point that you are the dominating species on the planet and find yourself fighting against cities run by other members of your kind. Throughout this stage you are afforded a pleasing amount of customisation with every building, vehicle and turret being entirely of your own design. You even get to design your own national anthem with a music generator designed by the legendary Brian Eno. Once again however the game play is entirely too simplistic. The aim of this stage is to gain control of resources and of any cities which are not under your control. There are three ways of converting neighbouring cities; you have the option of conquering with violence, democracy or religious indoctrination. None of the above methods are nearly as interesting as they sound, relying on relatively base levels of implementation. Conquering with violence requires you to make use of three types of unit; aerial, ground and water in order to obliterate your enemy. To be quite frank I was left feeling a bit miffed at only being allowed three types of unit as it leaves any combat you engage in feeling little more than shallow. The democratic approach is similarly un-fleshy, with the options boiling down to "we have a common enemy, lets kill him together" and "will you be my friend if I give you some money". In order to indoctrinate your fellow cities you are required to post giant holographic images of your nations religious figurehead into the sky in order to spew religious vitriol. Does this sound boring? If so, that's probably because it is. Once again there is no apparent challenge present and worse still, our old friend the Escher map returns to disorient you in ways only previous achieved by copious amounts of alcohol. Again thankfully this stage is relatively short lived allowing you to move onto the Space stage without too much trouble.
• The Space stage (I'm willing to bet that this is a ripoff of some space sim, but as I've not played any myself I'm going to moderate the accusational tone)- the final stage in the Spore universe sees you travelling through space in a ship of your own design, vying for galactic domination via a mixture of democracy and violence. It's hard for me to make any sort of full and balanced judgement in regards to this stage, because if I'm honest, I got bored and stopped playing fairly quickly after getting started. I would say that it did seem to be more in-depth than previous stages with your species engaging in interstellar democracy, planetary terraforming and fighting off aggressive species of aliens. Unfortunately in achieving this depth, they ironically managed to the make the whole experience entirely tedious. For some obscure reason most of your navigation is done using the mouse wheel, which is incredibly annoying, especially when you're required to move between systems at a high frequency. Why you can't just click where you want to go, I will never understand. That simple interface change would have made the whole experience 100% less patience busting. The sheer amount of exploration possible is very impressive, as every system you enter has planets to be explored, many of which harbouring species in varying stages of development. I personally found this stage boring, but it may well be your sort of thing depending on how much patience you have and what kind of game you normally enjoy.

Overall Spore comes across as a pretty schizophrenic experience with each stage feeling interesting but pretty unsubstantiated. I personally found the games presentation to be quite rough around the edges as well, with some fairly flagrant graphical flaws and sub par graphics at best. It also feels like the game really could have benefited from some sort of multiplayer element. The amount of fun in any of the stages would be exponiated if you brought in the ability to play them against other humans; apart from anything else the AI is relatively lackluster and is a bit of a walkover at the best of times. In my opinion they made the mistake of hyping this game too early. By doing so it seems likely that they created an unhelpful rush to get the game out of the door, when to be quite frank, it wasn't finished. In order for this title to deliver on its promises it needed another year in development at least (Yes I have picked that timescale out of thin air and no I probably don't actually know what I'm talking about; thanks for your input fictional pedant). Having being developed by Brian Eno the soundtrack never fails to impress with each stage of development being perfectly supplemented by the score. The editor tools are also pretty darn good and are worthy of great praise from all who use them. One feature of note that has created a great deal of controversy is the SecuROM DRM software which prevents you from installing your copy of Spore more than five times, essentially turning your game into an over priced rental. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if it weren't for the fact that you can lose installs by installing new components on your computer. Worse still is the fact that you are forced to contact EA in America to request more installs if you run out. However I'm only interested in reviewing the game, not the DRM software that comes attached.

In conclusion Spore is an interesting experiment. It's certainly not the genre defining masterpiece that it set out to be and to be honest in a few places I'm not sure it even qualifies as a game. Will Wright should know better than to release an unfinished product at this point in his career and he deserves a much larger critical scathing than he has received. It's certainly worth a look if you're a creative type and you're not particularly bothered about depth of game play. If like me however you are a traditionalist and expect challenge and depth of game play you should probably look elsewhere. Scores: Graphics-3/5
Sound- 4/5
Game play- 2.8/5
Editor- 4.6/5
Overall 3.5/5 (Note: not an average)

If you have enjoyed this review please free to fuel my ego by saying so below or by subscribing to my blog. Equally if you feel that I suck please let me know, all criticism is welcome (Just keep my mum out of it).

A compensatory haiku

As I haven't actually written my review of Spore yet I felt that I should instead compensate you with a poorly written haiku in the meantime. Enjoy

I aim to evolve
emerge from a shallow pool
little has changed

I sincerely hope that my terrible attempt at poetry hasn't left you permanently mentally scarred. Normal service should be returning tomorrow.