What I Had Played and Seen in the USA

Finished ,,, and. Only one of these games I enjoyed a surprising amount of. Guess which one.

Played to Chapter 11 of at my cousin's house.

I don't see what all the fuss is about. I guess this is Sony's Gears of War so people put their eggs in the handbasket for this game. To me, felt like another cover shooter, albeit with a much more nimble monkey-like character. That I really liked having a fast-moving guy for a sub-genre full of tank dudes like Marcus Fenix. The enemies were forgettable, and so were the shooting set-pieces. You can't move from cover-to-cover which I think sucked, because if you're such a nimble guy, you should be able to flank dudes and be like Batman instead of looking like a guy who's afraid of bullets (Drake has an "afraid of bullets" animation, I'm serious). That's the one thing that Wanted game had down right; the offensive cover system.   

 There's not much storytelling in-game much like  Gears of War;  story only pops up at ends of levels. All the story is in cutscenes (which I'm starting to hate more as a storytelling device in games; show me you're not trying to be a movie). I know treasure hunting stories don't usually have much of a plot to them, and this is harking back to pulpy adventures complete with backstabbing characters and monologue-heavy villains. But it came off generic. Even though the characters have a solid grounding to them, and are well characterised. They might be stereotypes, but they move the mystery along. I just wish the storytelling wasn't just left to cutscenes; when you're with Elena, she doesn't talk much and you don't do much with her unlike the recent Prince of Persia. What I've already seen of UNCHARTED 2 however, with holding a wounded friend over a battlefield level as an escort mission sounds like promising storytelling. I like stories in games not for the cutscenes, I like when they're used in games to do what movies can't.    

 The jetski stuff was lame. This game has terrible explosion FX, or more like puffs of mushroom clouds. These are obviously nitpicks. 

It's weird seeing an "everydayman treasure hunter" become a genocidal murderer of pirates throughout this game! Niko Bellic and Nathan Drake should be friends since they're both genocidal maniacs!

The animations and graphics are nice, but I got bored of them after 10 minutes; they were no overriding factor for my enjoyment. I did like that I could turn "Fast Motion" on to play the game in Fast Forward.

The platforming and puzzles are kind of pathetic. There's no real challenge to the platforming; the fixed camera reduces any actual experimentation or thought when jumping from ledges. I don't know how people compared this to Tomb Raider , because those games are really challenging and engaging with platforming. This is not much of a platforming game, since you rarely if ever had to think.This is in no way a "Dude Raider" , unless in looks, since it has the same tropical jungle thing going for it.

The only impressive cinematic segment in the game was, when you go into some abandoned submarine and just walk around, adventure-game like. There was great tension, as if some horror thing was about to happen. Will zombie ghost ship pirates come later on? I heard there are mutants later on?! o_O At least the ghosts would be more believable...

Seen,, and in USA cinemas. Public Enemies was a disappointment; Michael Mann needs to go back and re-think about making Heat "spiritual" sequels like this. District 9's visual FX and CGI-with-humans interaction makesAVATARlook like a joke. I was totally surprised that the movie focused just on 1 character, van de Merwe, which is rare for an action movie. It felt like that gruesomeFlymovie. Excellent and emotional acting from him. And its budget is less than a romantic comedy! Speaking of which, 500 Days of Summer was a great romantic comedy that is more recommended to  guys  than girls.

Now a fan of . Don't judge me!!! it has actually good comedic writing and great timing from the actors. It's Friends for kids!

My cousins were blown away by. They'd never seen an animated film like it. There's a reason I called it one of the best films I'd ever seen.

Still haven't got Batman Arkham Asylum. Maybe today??? I played the demo like 20 times, fun to experiment.

Demo Reviews:

. was surprisingly a great multiplayer substitute. The super-running and flying was great to chain together. Art direction was totally generic space marines, but at least there's a Sun here! Skydiving was fantastic. The depth with being able to plant down turrets or your own Mech (?!) stopped the game from being boring, and more like an RTS.

. Man, I loved it! My cousins did too. So here are a few reasons... Gorgeous art direction. Very mechanics-heavy, much like IO's Hitman games. The abilities you have at your disposal are excellent; shurikens, fireball, being able to spirit jack animals?! There is an actual stealth takedown. You can change between 3 versatile characters on the fly. Doing the big guy's rolling bulldozer was hilarious. There is an insanely cool-lookin' quick draw move where if you hold down the Y button, you can paint on your enemies and get instant kills. But since this is a cute game, they turn into fuzzy forest animals that you can hijack! Pandas, too, who can actually fight. Overall, a lot of surprises in the demo.

. Other than the jumping and wall-running feeling very awkward, I had a blast with this Max Payne-like shooter. It was much much better than Stranglehold thanks to not having claustrophobic level design. Seriously, someone kick Stranglehold's level designer! The acrobatics were fun, like choosing between sliding (more stable, but only in 1 direction) or jumping (less stable, but can target people all around) for the slow-down shooting had strategic value. And the sword is actually not a stupid melee gimmick! My favourite move is sliding, wall-running ON A GUY, kicking off him, then shooting him. The combo multiplier encourages you to vary it up a bit, like Devil May Cry. The Grindhouse art direction got a little distracting, but after a while it felt awesome with the great music.

Mini-Ninjas was the best demo of the bunch, and a surprising game from the gritty Hitman and K&L developers. Now where did my 40 GBP go so I can finally play?!

Finished ,,, and. Only one of these games I enjoyed a surprising amount of. Guess which one.

Played to Chapter 11 of at my cousin's house.

I don't see what all the fuss is about. I guess this is Sony's Gears of War so people put their eggs in the handbasket for this game. To me, felt like another cover shooter, albeit with a much more nimble monkey-like character. That I really liked having a fast-moving guy for a sub-genre full of tank dudes like Marcus Fenix. The enemies were forgettable, and so were the shooting set-pieces. You can't move from cover-to-cover which I think sucked, because if you're such a nimble guy, you should be able to flank dudes and be like Batman instead of looking like a guy who's afraid of bullets (Drake has an "afraid of bullets" animation, I'm serious). That's the one thing that Wanted game had down right; the offensive cover system.   

 There's not much storytelling in-game much like  Gears of War;  story only pops up at ends of levels. All the story is in cutscenes (which I'm starting to hate more as a storytelling device in games; show me you're not trying to be a movie). I know treasure hunting stories don't usually have much of a plot to them, and this is harking back to pulpy adventures complete with backstabbing characters and monologue-heavy villains. But it came off generic. Even though the characters have a solid grounding to them, and are well characterised. They might be stereotypes, but they move the mystery along. I just wish the storytelling wasn't just left to cutscenes; when you're with Elena, she doesn't talk much and you don't do much with her unlike the recent Prince of Persia. What I've already seen of UNCHARTED 2 however, with holding a wounded friend over a battlefield level as an escort mission sounds like promising storytelling. I like stories in games not for the cutscenes, I like when they're used in games to do what movies can't.    

 The jetski stuff was lame. This game has terrible explosion FX, or more like puffs of mushroom clouds. These are obviously nitpicks. 

It's weird seeing an "everydayman treasure hunter" become a genocidal murderer of pirates throughout this game! Niko Bellic and Nathan Drake should be friends since they're both genocidal maniacs!

The animations and graphics are nice, but I got bored of them after 10 minutes; they were no overriding factor for my enjoyment. I did like that I could turn "Fast Motion" on to play the game in Fast Forward.

The platforming and puzzles are kind of pathetic. There's no real challenge to the platforming; the fixed camera reduces any actual experimentation or thought when jumping from ledges. I don't know how people compared this to Tomb Raider , because those games are really challenging and engaging with platforming. This is not much of a platforming game, since you rarely if ever had to think.This is in no way a "Dude Raider" , unless in looks, since it has the same tropical jungle thing going for it.

The only impressive cinematic segment in the game was, when you go into some abandoned submarine and just walk around, adventure-game like. There was great tension, as if some horror thing was about to happen. Will zombie ghost ship pirates come later on? I heard there are mutants later on?! o_O At least the ghosts would be more believable...

Seen,, and in USA cinemas. Public Enemies was a disappointment; Michael Mann needs to go back and re-think about making Heat "spiritual" sequels like this. District 9's visual FX and CGI-with-humans interaction makesAVATARlook like a joke. I was totally surprised that the movie focused just on 1 character, van de Merwe, which is rare for an action movie. It felt like that gruesomeFlymovie. Excellent and emotional acting from him. And its budget is less than a romantic comedy! Speaking of which, 500 Days of Summer was a great romantic comedy that is more recommended to  guys  than girls.

Now a fan of . Don't judge me!!! it has actually good comedic writing and great timing from the actors. It's Friends for kids!

My cousins were blown away by. They'd never seen an animated film like it. There's a reason I called it one of the best films I'd ever seen.

Still haven't got Batman Arkham Asylum. Maybe today??? I played the demo like 20 times, fun to experiment.

Demo Reviews:

. was surprisingly a great multiplayer substitute. The super-running and flying was great to chain together. Art direction was totally generic space marines, but at least there's a Sun here! Skydiving was fantastic. The depth with being able to plant down turrets or your own Mech (?!) stopped the game from being boring, and more like an RTS.

. Man, I loved it! My cousins did too. So here are a few reasons... Gorgeous art direction. Very mechanics-heavy, much like IO's Hitman games. The abilities you have at your disposal are excellent; shurikens, fireball, being able to spirit jack animals?! There is an actual stealth takedown. You can change between 3 versatile characters on the fly. Doing the big guy's rolling bulldozer was hilarious. There is an insanely cool-lookin' quick draw move where if you hold down the Y button, you can paint on your enemies and get instant kills. But since this is a cute game, they turn into fuzzy forest animals that you can hijack! Pandas, too, who can actually fight. Overall, a lot of surprises in the demo.

. Other than the jumping and wall-running feeling very awkward, I had a blast with this Max Payne-like shooter. It was much much better than Stranglehold thanks to not having claustrophobic level design. Seriously, someone kick Stranglehold's level designer! The acrobatics were fun, like choosing between sliding (more stable, but only in 1 direction) or jumping (less stable, but can target people all around) for the slow-down shooting had strategic value. And the sword is actually not a stupid melee gimmick! My favourite move is sliding, wall-running ON A GUY, kicking off him, then shooting him. The combo multiplier encourages you to vary it up a bit, like Devil May Cry. The Grindhouse art direction got a little distracting, but after a while it felt awesome with the great music.

Mini-Ninjas was the best demo of the bunch, and a surprising game from the gritty Hitman and K&L developers. Now where did my 40 GBP go so I can finally play?!