This is a pretty unexciting blog, I really just wanted to show the Journey soundtrack CD I received in the post today. I'm unlikely to ever put the actual CD into anything as I own it digitally, but it's a really nice thing to have and came with some postcards.

It's also signed by Austin Wintory, Jenova Chen and someone else.

Spent the last few days playing the arcadey E.X Troopers and today my newest questionable purchase arrived at my front door.PIKACHU 3DSXL!!

There's some really irritating things about transfering all of your data from one system to another and the bottom screen definitely comes off worst when it comes to resolution, the top screen is ace though. Resident Evil, Mario and Kid Icarus look fantastic.

PIKANIPPLES!!

On a side note... I looked at my stats earlier. I have viewed the internet 1337 times!!

I have been known on occasion to buy silly things, expensive things that I don't really need. I have a horrible habit of buying comics, toys, old games, imported games... Robin Hood Prince of Thieves action figures. Y'know the usual kinds of things we all spend out money on at four or five in the morning after two days without any sleep. My latest questionable purchase just so happens to be a video game, a video game from the far away, magical land of Japan. The not-so-eagerly awaited Lost Planet spin off E.X Troopers from Capcom. I thought about how I wanted to describe the game. A review wouldn't make any sense because I don't have the best Japanese, and by that I mean I don't know Japanese. So it's a good job that the story is so easy to understand. (Make up)

I decided I'm going to write a sort of diary of my experiences in Anime Lost Planet Land, which will also be about a 95% accurate description of the story, so if you want to avoid incredibly accurate spoilers for a game that is probably, possibly never going to come out anywhere else in the rest of the world you should probably avoid this. I feel like I first need to describe my Lost Planet experience up to this point. I really liked the first game despite it being rather simplistic and very short. I had many hours of fun with the multiplayer even if I never really got any good at it. On the flipside I despise the second game and would place it right along side Resident Evil 6 as one of the worst games I have played this generation. A game that admittedly was patched to be more tolerable, but was completely broken as a single player experience at launch. I don't want to spend my time bitching about other games, and I have absolutely no interest in talking about them any more than I have already. I have always liked the snowy landscapes and giant bugs vs VS's theme, and now it has extra added anime, what could go wrong?

So, here goes.

ANIME!!

The first thing I am greeted with is a title screen. I know, bizarre right? The best thing about the title screen is that it just says PRESS TO START!! Press what? It really wants me to press something, it has two exclamation points. This means it wants me to do it in a hurry probably, like it knows how much I need more anime in my life. I press the start button, we are off to a good start. I know English and those words are very clearly English. The J-Pop begins, YES! This game could not have started any better. There's flashes of boys and girls in an assortment of colourful sci-fi fashion and the standard school uniform-like clothing you get in big, loud and shouty anime... Oh, and mechs and explosions and shit interwoven in what seems to be the pages of a manga.

The game opens with some space shuttles on their way to the planet EDN3 strangely via one of the Halo ring worlds. I'm not all that impressed with the quality of the cel shaded art, in fact it seems like they have just blown up the 3DS game for an HD screen, but I don't want to criticize the game, this isn't a review, this is all about the epic story of some space wizards and a talking robot. I've gotten ahead of myself... rewind back to the spaceship.

Here the camera pans over some school kids on a journey through space until it stops on a sleeping, spikey haired boy in a bright orange jacket. His name is Ron. Yes, Ron. He suddenly wakes up throwing his manga up into the air excitedly as it seems like he has never been into space before and this is the greatest day of his entire life. Ron gets up and starts pacing up and down the ship, Ron LOVES this spaceship.

Moments later a man that looks suspiciously like Rob Halford (who is most definitely named Snape) in bright blue comes over and hits our hero in the face, he's all like "There's robots outside and we need to take care of it." He's pretty angry so Ron doesn't really have a choice other than to get into the mech with Snape. They start talking about 326 something or others which is probably the power level of the Wood Bell. What is the Wood Bell you ask? It's a weapon or a spaceship or a mech, either way a screen tells me "Wood Bell Next Activate Ability" which is good as there's some real shit going down out in space. Snape lectures Ron about how to use the mech by pointing his finger in the air and screaming something, which funnily enough is the only way of getting anyone to understand how important something is in anime.

The mech flies out into space and tells me to LOCK ON. I'm not really sure if this is a cutscene or a Quick Time Event, but by hammering the R1 button things explode and I get through the sequence unscathed, like the Novice-Pro mech pilot I was obviously born and destined to be.

I cannot stress how PUMPED Ron is at this point, he seem like he's going to explode from all of the excitement. Snape gets mega angry in his own charming little way full of electric sparks and pointy fingers and the mech starts to burn up as it enters the atmosphere of the planet below. We land, unsurprisingly Ron is pumped that we landed and Snape gives me a gun. This was probably the best timing possible as a bug monster attacks and Ron gets all scaredy despite momentarily ago being an awesome space pilot. Ron is injured and limps away from the monster, but just as soon as he is backed into a corner there's a flash of light and a crash and a bang and Ron is saved. Thank god for hot anime girls with guns and moody, floppy fringed pretty anime boys with sniper rifles.The girl is really happy about something on her phone, and writes a cool Twitter update "KAWAIII!!! BIG MONSTER GET! SUGOI!!!!" The pretty dude is unimpressed about everything. The hot anime girl is totally into me.

All while this is happening there's a girl on a hill chanting and talking to her half dead mum or something. She wasn't screaming at the top of her lungs so I kinda lost interest here.

FIRSTSTARSHOOTINGSTAR. (Chapter 1)

I get a title - Ichiban Boy. I don't know what it means, but I assume it's pretty cool because I got a medal as well. Medals for awesome piloting skills seem like a pretty appropriate thing considering I only just learnt how to do it. We cut back to the mysterious girl and she's doing some kind of magical ceremony where a giant laser beam from outer space blows something up and a dude that looks just like Ron is seen in some kind of flashback. We get a nice shot of the chanting girl's blue hair which is all sparkly, a bit like her eyes. She obviously has magic hair or magic shampoo, either way she seems pretty magical. I'm sure she's going to be into me at some point in the game.

So we get to Space Hogwarts Academy of Circle Strafing and the man in charge is having a conversation with Snape whilst stroking his beard. All of the students stand around and listen to some announcements whilst both the girls and the boys swoon over the white haired pretty boy named Malfoy, Mal for short. It's pretty obvious that Ron doesn't give a fuck about anything because he continues to be pumped about everything.

I meet a new friend with glasses, His name is Harry, he seems nice he's really into his books and science, and is really clumsy. Ron automatically takes a shine to him and starts his trademark pumpedism. Harry is so enamored by me that he calls me Senpai Kun which means king of awesome... Harry is way into me.

I'm tasked with running about the halls looking for my next mission indicated by a big "!" on the minimap. I am automatically sidetracked and meet Solid Snake and a girl who I assume to be German because her dress looks similar to a dirndl. Neither of them have very much to say, but a girl with ellipses on her head (indicating she is totally into me) tells me about some cool new spells and gives me a present. F'Yeah!

I'm told to go meet a space ghost, not THE Space Ghost, but a floating cyber-ghost called WIZ... which I assume is just short for Wizard, which totally makes sense as J.K Rowling probably wrote the story for this game. We chat, it's pretty boring, but both the hot girl (Hermione, or Hermy for short) and Mal have some stuff they need to discuss with me and Snape. Hermy is still into me, Harry has a total Bro-Boner and Mal is still trying to act the cool silent dismissive type.

I'm told I need to start a mission, I'm allowed to choose between Stupid clothing and less stupid clothing, so naturally I choose the dumbest option possible and two weapons. I settle on a gun and a grenade launcher. It doesn't really matter much because it turns out my task is to beat up some other space ghosts, which I promptly boost-kick to death with my speedy jet-hover-pack thing. It turns out I must be a pro ghost-kicker as I level up. I get another medal because I'm special and am told to "Tresspass" I don't even know what that means, it seems important though so I wrote it down in some notes. Another dude gives me a present and Harry tells me how cool he thinks I am and wishes that he was me and his life isn't worth living which I'm happy about, so I punch the air.

I run about Hogwarts for a bit, find I can buy a gun that looks like it has a rhino's horn and meet up with Hermy who proceeds to tell me how into me she is... and something about VS's. I do some missions, basic tutorial stuff like kicking microchips out of Solid Snake and boost-kicking girls in the face. I get told that 28 girls kicked in the face is pretty respectable, but Mal is all "I kicked 50" and Harry starts bro-crushing on him for a moment. My disappointment doesn't last long and I'm back to my usual pumped self when suddenly I get a text message. "Hey, come get some food" Hell yes I want some food so I run over to the canteen where a lady is serving food. She has got three items Tea, Burgers and Starburgers. Naturally I opt for the most expensive, the Starburger. It turns out I FUCKING LOVE STARBURGERS. I get +1 of something, +1 awesome I assume. "Extra Purse!" apparently.

Snape tells me to get to the library immediately, I make my way there, but I am inevitably sidetracked by the toilets, I enter three or four times and am surprised by how much Ron has to say. The fourth visit I'm rewarded with some purple crystals, I'm not told how or where I got them, all I know is that I entered with nothing and left with a pile of them. I try my luck with the girls toilets, but I am punched out of them into a wall.

GHOST ALERT!

We get a ghost alert from the space ghost wizard lady and everyone is excited to go and fight stuff. The mission involves me circle strafing monsters and shooting them in the face. Mal insults me for being slow although it looks like I rescued him from certain death and Solid Snake is all "Yo, upgrade your shit" which I do. I do a few more missions, one of which required me to collect jewels for Hermy. I'm glad I did this because our first date involved me murdering a giant snow armadillo, she was so happy watching me end the existence of some of the local wildlife. I get a bunch of jewels, level up and return to school. I do the same routine of fishing for presents from random students and buy another Starburger. (obviously) Now the German girl is into me, she and I have a little chat about how I single handedly saved the planet from a giant armadillo invasion and she gives me a star and another burger.

I have a little search around, there's a shady student near the toilets that wants me to run a maze in a certain amount of time. The maze is pretty basic and started off with the words "GAME STARTO!" and ended with the word "GOAL!!" shouted at me. I came in third, so I try again and come in second. The number one target time seems almost unattainable, but oh well I guess. Ron then shouts out "Shoot Her!" I'm not really sure why, maybe he's just really into randomly shouting out Jurassic Park quotes.

I'm getting a bunch more missions now, one of them had me circle strafing two giant armadillo's while Mal held them down with a purple stun-ball gun. He is pretty cool, but I'd never tell him that, it totally makes sense why he has all of those fan girls hanging about with him. Back at school though the German girl has something musical to tell me, I think she invited me to a concert, but more importantly she gave me a star and a starburger... she knows the correct way to Ron's heart.

Hermy decides she wants more crystals so we go out on a mission to kill some bugs and unexpectedly get ambushed by a giant preying mantis looking thing. I circle strafe it for a good twenty minutes, but my weapons are doing no good. It kills me which is unfortunate, but it turns out I'm so awesome that I can just respawn instantly, that is for three spawns anyways. Eventually I discover that I'm just supposed to avoid it, collect jewels and then run away like a coward. I stubbornly try to kill it again, but I am taught a tough lesson once again.

I discover that in order to upgrade my guns I need both presents and jewels, which seems needlessly awkward, but seeing as so many people are into me and gifts come quite regularly it's not that bad. The German girl sends me a text, it seems she has another Starburger for me. A starburger was exactly what I needed as my next mission would require me to boost-kick a bunch more girls in the face. The Starburger works out and I get more presents and stars, one girl likes me enough to give me two presents so I upgrade my grenade launcher. The shop now has Star Chicken, but I'm sticking with what I know at this point and 300 coins for a tub of chicken in the shape of stars seems a bit steep.

VIRTUAL REALITY.

Harry is reaaaaaaaally into VR he seems way more into it than both Ron and Mal combined. The space ghost puts me into some kind of Tron-Room where there is a boy selling VR food, I could get a VR hotdog, but I instead opt for a VR Starburger. I'm required to do a couple of missions and an optional third that seems a little harder, all of which surprisingly revolve around me circle strafing and boost-kicking bugs to death.

Once I'm done with what is probably a tutorial for online missions Solid snake is all like "Check out my shotgun" spinning it around like some kind of space cowboy. Snake takes me to some bridges where he wants to shotgun and kick some girls to death until the German girl from the cafeteria turns up with a rocket launcher, so I boost-kick her in the face. I'm initially a little conflicted about doing this as she gave me a bunch of burgers and is most definitely down for some boning. But as soon as I realise my shotgun turns girls into snowmen I warm to the idea of shooting them all and unlock the shotgun for use elsewhere in the game.

SHIT GETS REAL.

WIZard ghost sends me an alert there's some kind of SOS call from WBN EVE C which is probably a news channel with an overly long name. The gang have a little discussion about if we are ready and the ever-pumped Ron is all like DUH, Of course and punches the air. I'm told about some review scores for games, Wizard-Ghost is totally into Far cry 3 and awards it 89%.

The gang is in full for the first time. Ron, Harry and Hermy need to open some doors and attack some snow pirates which look a little like one of the trade federation aliens in The Phantom Menace, luckily they're all too stupid and are beaten by me circling around them and shooting them. We know shit has gotten real as J-Pop starts playing and bigger snow pirates try to stop me from opening a door. Boost-kicking them doesn't really do any good, so luckily strafing around them works just as well.

I get to a big open area with a broken red mech laying on the ground. It turns out that it was a trap and I'd have to fight that dude from Star Wars piloting the thing. It's actually pretty easy as it only really has three attacks and it seems far more intent on beating up on Harry in a corner than going after me, which is nice.The mech is defeated and I'm rewarded with a giant golden nut, the game seems to have mistaken us for Ratchet and Clank, I'll take it anyway. I'm sure I could sell it to pay for more Starburgers. "Achoo"

End of Episode 1

So this is my overly long story-diary thing about Anime Lost Planet. I'm not very good at writing and rarely write blogs so this might be a little too long, but thanks for reading it. I may or many not write a part 2 as I'm pretty lazy, but if I do expect talking E. Honda robots, dominatrix teachers with inappropriate behavior towards students, Knight Rider mechs and even more obsessive Starburger consumption.

(For some reason it wouldn't let me add headers to each section, oh well.)

I finally get what the nonsensical words are between levels... They're saying E.X Troopers.

Yeah, this is mega spoilery. I tried my best to be a good person and I stuck with Kenny unless he was saying something totally insane. I found myself only really giving a shit about Clementine, Kenny & his family and Carley, pretty much everyone else was expendable. Maybe I'm just really heartless or the the writing didn't live up to the standards everyone has been hyping up for the last six months. I think the second episode was the strongest and the back half of episode 3 was mind numbingly boring.(mostly from a gameplay perspective)

I was sad at a couple of points, but not even close to tearful. and the ending between Lee and Clementine seemed so predictable after they had gone out of their way to make sure you taught her to be strong and use a gun, and then get bitten. I've seen the TV show... It's always about the messiest outcome. There was no way in hell Lee was going to survive this game... Now if they killed Clementine, I'd have been appropriately shocked.

I think the game is good, very good in fact, I'm really glad I played it, but It really comes down to somethign as simple as this for me. The story was good... For a video game.

And I'm a heartless fuck. (obviously)

Episode 1

Saved Duck. I had nothing against the other dude, but I was always gonna save the child and Kenny seemed like a nice dude.

Didn't give the bitten lady the gun.

Let Doug(?) die. He seemed nice enough, but I was a little endeared by Carley's radio battery idiocy.

Episode 2

Didn't shoot the mad lady in the woods

Clementine ate some of that dudes leg. ("It's people" is the wrong dialogue option apparently)

Held Lilly back while Kenny splutched her dad

Spared both brothers.

Episode 3

Helped out Lilly

Lilly shot Carley in the face...

Left that bitch to die as it seemed like Carley was down for some boning.

Shot Duck in the face myself (I got emotional here)

Saved Crista accidently...I'd much rather have saved Omid.

Episode 4

Chuck bought it, whatevs.

Killed the boy in the attic myself.

Ben was a dick, couldn't wait to let him die, let him go. I was expecting to have a section where I would choose who wasn't getting on a boat... I planned on ditching the whiney, untrustworthy traitor, turns out the game would let me kill him sooner... Yay!

Episode 5

Cut off my arm. (GNGHHH!)

Kenny died idiotically saving Crista... I found this to be massively out of character and took me right out of the game.

Crista and Omid crossed first I killed a bunch of zombies on the way to the hotel.

Dude was a nut. Shot that bitch right in the face.

Clementine killed my face.

Clementine sees some people off in the distance in a field.

After playing Sonic and Sega and Disney all-stars best friends and other dudes extreme transformed for an insane amount of time I finally unlocked Nights, who is both very fast and good at handling. I was staring at the character select screen thinking "Why is Nights wearing that stupid mask?" and then I suddenly realised he WAS the car... A NIGHTMARISH SOUL EATING CAR MONSTROSITY!

Yes, this was worth a whole entire blog post.

Weird that I've done this two weeks in a row. The UK's total disregard for release dates is a pretty awesome thing.

So, I played through the campaign in one sitting, only taking a two minute break to eat a biscuit and drink some tea. I have liked all of the Halo games, a lot in some cases (ODST) but never loved one... Until now. Halo 4 has the best campaign in the series mostly due to its relentless pacing (one of the reasons I couldn't stop playing it) , its good story and amazing art.

I think the ending is a little flat considering what happens, but the story throughout the 7-8ish hours was consistently good. Well acted, well told and those character models/faces are superb, some of the best out there. It is definitely as reviews have said Cortana's story and it's nice to hear Master Chief with a lot more dialogue.

This game looks amazing, one of the best of this generation, there is a huge amount of variety in the environments and the lighting is great. The game started and I still thought it was in a cut scene, the hazy, moody lighting in the first mission doesn't come close to some of the amazing visuals later in this game.

The score is one of the best in a game this year. The sounds of the guns have all been redone, I found it a little strange that there isn't a single one of the old style plasma guns in the game, its been replaced with a plasma rifle thing that works exactly the same. All of the new effects for the guns make them sound like they do an insane amount of damage. The tank has this ridiculous, echoey boom that makes you feel godlike.

There's a good mix of on foot and vehicle sequences and the new enemies can be terrifying when they start teleporting towards you. The smaller ones are little fuckers that can be taken down easily if there is one or two, but in large numbers they will kill your shields in an instant.

Final thoughts. I think this game is easily one of the best of the year, it hasn't jumped to the top of my list, but I assume it will be right up there after messing around with the multiplayer. I think the final gameplay/story section is a bit weak and the epilogue is just setting up the next games. I'd like to have known more about the bad guy, although I have a feeling a lot of that backstory is hidden in some of the terminal stuff I unlocked. It is nuts to think a game that looks this good is running on such old hardware, I could gush endlessly about the games visuals. I think 343 have balanced honouring the past and making Halo their own pretty damn well. I can't wait to see what they do with the series next.

This game is totally more Halo.

I managed to get my copy in the post earlier today and have played a pretty huge chunk of it. I'd say going by achievements that I'm coming up on the halfway point and I have been enjoying it, but not without more issues than I would have liked.

I have found the game to be full of some really messed up glitchiness, people disappearing, fights ending before all soldiers are dead, totally unresponsive guards whilst you murder all of their friends around them, some really bad framerate in some of the more action orientated set pieces. Just a really high volume of weirdness, nothing game breaking, but definitely immersion breaking.

I have found the games story so far to be enjoyable although it's nothing you haven't seen elsewhere in the series already. I have played as Desmond and I really enjoyed his first mission, I don't really think this is a spoiler for anyone.

I have a lot to say about the "extended prologue" (late title card) and can't wait to discuss the "Holy fuck!" moment that occurs at the end of it. There has been a sequence that is by far the weirdest thing in any of the games and I'm expecting far more of that.

I have done the first Naval battle, it was far more exciting than I thought it would be.

I don't really like what they've done with the shops, it seems needlessly complicated, I preferred the way it was handled in the last three games, but it's hardly an important part of the game. there's a lot of animals, and there's a lot of opportunities for animal murder. (I stealth killed a raccoon)

Overall it feels like more of the same so far, probably a little more ambitious in scope, there's some awful looking scenery in some of the woodland areas, something I really, really wasn't expecting and some of the British voices are so, so, so, so terrible. Connor's voice is great and so are a couple of other major characters, but some of the supporting cast sound like they're just reading it off of the page which is weird for such a high profile game.

I think the faces look great, there's been some exciting stuff happen, although I was really put off by the three or so missions at the start of the game that had instant fail states, but as soon as it opened up it felt a lot more balanced. I'm also not a fan of the way you can be attacked by up to four guards all at the same time, it feels like a cheap way to up the difficulty as most of the combat is pretty easy.

At the minute it feels like more of the same, I'm hoping for some truly mad/ great stuff to happen. I'd love another AC2 ending moment, but who knows how it'll end. It seems like a good game at the minute, nothing has elevated it to great yet, and the technical stuff is really bumming me out at times.

edit - It also features possibly the best instance of Nolan North swearing.

EDIT 2 -Finished it. Connor's story gets pretty exciting towards the end, but ultimately falls flat. Desmond's unfortunately falls even flatter, which is so depressing as his final gameplay sequence shows a hell of a lot of promise.

The end isn't Mass effect levels of bad, but it glosses over a lot and is pretty much a non-end point for the series (surprise) Very few answers despite the feeling that they were going to lay out all the space people stuff clearly. It's not a clever or thought provoking ending, just brief and a little insulting to people that have stuck with the series for five games.

I am left pretty disappointed overall. I expected more from the storytelling, but all I really got was uneven gameplay. I like the game for the most part, but it's pretty hard to recommend to anyone else over the better (Ezio) games in the series.

Totally got my Meat Boy figure in the post today, he is awesome. Totally got an extra Team Meat sticker and a phone charm thingy. (?) Man, I <3 Team Meat!

Finally got all the endings of The Binding of Isaac. I kept getting to Satan only to be murdered by his goat leg form. If I have a little complaint about the difficulty in that game it is definitely that boss. It's not the easiest thing to get to him and he has four forms, and learning his attacks the first few times you get to him will most likely get you murdered.

I had the luckiest run last night though, Rage, rainbow baby, little chad, rock, triple shot, blessed, big bullets, coal and Mom's pearl which meant I was constantly getting hearts in Sheol which is a rarity... in the final room a slot machine dropped The Tick and that drops bosses health by 15%. It is almost like the game knew to give me a break ( I highly doubt it was anything but luck) as I was one step away from giving up trying to beat Satan.

Beating Isaac in the cathedral was kinda easy, I did it first time.

I really, Really like the GRAW games and got heavily into the Co-Op portion of both one and two. GRAW was the second game I bought for my 360, and was the very first tactical shooter I ever played. I never really knew I liked sneaking around corners and sniping dudes until I played that game. So when they first announced a new Ghost Recon I got really excited, but it seems with all the Call of Duties and Army of Twosies etc my love for military dudes shooting other dudes in the face isn't as strong. I was going to play this game regardless of the reviews. I really enjoyed the story in the last game and watching red triangles turn to white triangles while ordering about my squad mates. This game has all of that, but isn't really what I was hoping for.

Good things.

Some of the levels look really nice. There's a level set in the snow, some woodland areas and various parts of the world that look really good and when there is smoke billowing from things or masses of things on fire the game can look quite stunning.

Squad mates are useful and doing the mark and execute move works really well. When you pull it off and take down four targets whilst they move around civilians it is really satisfying.

The game for the first two thirds is quite challenging, you can only take two or three hits before you go down and playing the game like Call of Duty will get you murderified quite quickly.

Some of the music is quite pleasant I suppose.

Bad things

The problem with all of the good things is that there is always something to counterbalance them, The art in some levels is nice, but the cut scenes really do look almost like PS2 quality. The faces of the soldiers are abysmal and you wouldn't believe they are in a game in the year 2012. The in game character models are mostly fine and some of the animation is nice, but everyone is faceless and looks exactly the same.

Squad mates cannot be controlled, and while they are very good at killing dudes they often rush forward into danger. In the early parts of the game this is fine, but when youre facing tanks and turrets and wubwubwub special forces, you start seeing them drop like flies because they are so twitchy to put as many people as possible down.

the wubwubspecial forces. Now there's challenging and cheap and the special forces, even on normal wubwubwub take you down in one hit about 90% of the time. It can get really tough when they start showing up and you know they're about to ambush you because wubwub wubbbbbbbb... the dubstep kicks in.

Frame rate is atrocious at times and the game required me to do a little install on the 360 AND I installed it fully to my drive.

Story is nonsensical and I have no idea who the dudes I killed at the end were. They try to make you care about the team, but they could be any grrr military stereotype and any of the stuff they do hint at with the half Russian dude you play as is said in a couple of lines. The ending is probably meant to mean something or set up a sequel, but it just seems out of place and kinda confusing.

Now, This is the part that is so annoying. INSTANT FAILURE for being spotted in stealth sections. I'm not bad at games, and I don't just rush about like an idiot, but this game has some of the most frustrating "YOU WERE DETECTED, TRY AGAIN?" moments. I have ever encountered in a game. I think all of the missions in the game have a section where you can fail just by killing the wrong dude/ set of dudes at the wrong time, and the A.I is really inconsistent. Sometimes it spots you, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes one of the four people in your synced up shots doesn't die and you fail etc. Most of the earlier parts like this are easy, but there are two missions where the vast majority of the level you are required to go through these long stretches taking out at least eight or so patrolling guards with seemingly random logic in which ones you should take out first. It is all very, very trial and error. I got stuck on one checkpoint for about an hour, partly because the game checkpointed me infront of a guard and it was 50/50 whether i'd get an instant detection or not, and because it made no sense in which guards I need to take out in order.

On top of this I had missions decide to not move on because one last guard in an area got stuck on some scenery, another section where it kept telling me over and over that the area was clear and then spawning another couple of soldiers, and a checkpoint kicked in with 20 seconds on a timer requiring me to start a mission from the beginning among other little issues here and there. Parts of the game really do feel a little unfinished.

So that's most of the things about the game, I'm really disappointed with it. As soon as you realize the game boils down to the exact same thing on a loop. Sync shot-alert-gunfight-stealth-big set piece at the end of a level rinse and repeat. It's also quite annoying that in any area where non-fail stealth can be used for taking out a handful of guards, you will ALWAYS set off an alert and have to shoot your way forwards taking out the reinforcements. It feels really gamey and happens all the way throughout the game.

So that's a bunch of my thoughts, this was longer than what I wanted to type, I can't help but feel like a lot of the game was designed around co-op. I'm really bummed out that the awesome co-op missions were dropped in favour of full campaign and what little multiplayer I have played seems to want you to play tactically, but rewards you for being a run & gunner with an smg, although that will probably balance itself out when more people are playing it. (or get worse) Oh well I guess, that's about it. I'm going to go make a cup of tea and think about what a big nightmarish insta-fail fest the last mission is.

Nothing says special forces like dubstep.