I've always been curious in checking out the Lost Planet series. The idea of this extremely weighty and animation-heavy shooter has always sounded pretty appealing to me, in a similar way to my fascination with the Monster Hunter series at that, given that Lost Planet is essentially, ''what if Monster Hunter was a TPS''. Though while I'm still waiting on the off-chance that Monster Hunter is released on a console I own or am going to own (AKA, not a Wii U), I'm outta luck on that front. But Lost Planet is ever accessible so I finally decided to give it a shot!

Lost Planet 2 wasn't exactly the most well received of games, nor was the reception to the reception... the reaction to Brad's two star review was bad enough that it created a mini-disaster. Of course an outcry of utter outrage at a review isn't exactly rare, but Lost Planet 2's is certainly up there with the likes of the Catherine and, yes, the recent DmC review.

After putting in roughly around 13 hours thus far, a lot of the criticisms are most certainly justified. Some, however, I've found to simply be a matter of taste. The plodding movement speed and animation-heavy actions of your characters? Bloody love it! All the more so for the ultra-powerful mech 'Vitality Suits' you can use. Much like for the same reason as to why I've always enjoyed the driving in GTAIV, the weighty nature of the mechanics just make everything about you feel tough; like you're lugging around a giant suitcase full of 20 ton badassery. Lost Planet 2's shooting also has a really great kick to it. Weapons feel powerful and have superb sound effects, and the meaty roar of its shotgun is especially pleasing to the ears.

Even besides the sound effects, the game in general is still quite the production power-house. Given that it's Capcom it comes to little surprise, considering even 2009's RE5 still looks really pretty to this day. I was pleasantly surprised to see how there's a good variety of locales at that, all of which carry their own specific style of atmosphere from the early snow blizzards to the late game spacefaring.

However, while I have enjoyed my time with Lost Planet 2, I'm still a little reluctant to call it a good game. Pieces here and there I've genuinely found to be a lot of fun--the giant, glowy weak-spot equipped Akird boss battles in particular--but there's still a swath of problems to contend with. I should also note that the game's been patched a couple of time since its release, so the version I've played was assuredly a great deal friendlier than how it was at launch.

Even still, the fact that it's built from the ground up as a multiplayer game only to disallow drop in/drop out capability is insane. Though weirdly enough people are still playing this thing! With a little patience as I hanged around in my lobby, I was able to pick up two randoms; too bad they decided to leave after only one chapter. And that's another thing; the way the game is segregated between sections that can sometimes literally be completely in like 3-5 minutes long is awkwardly designed. Consistently having to go through load screens and menus, and then having to wait through the ''get ready - Go!'' load at the start of every level, only breaks up the pacing of the game.

Furthermore, the story is a nonsensical mess, with you constantly switching between generic facemask wearing pirate faction after pirate faction, all of whom lack any distinctive characteristics (besides the silly 'Banditos') and for the most part are defined by their outfits and their 'cool' generican (generic American...) accents. All in the name of stopping some evil corporation who barely exists beyond a name. To say that the story is undeveloped would be an understatement in any case. Which is unfortunate, because the cutscenes are well directed and carry a lot of style to them. Of course Capcom in particular are known for being all style little substance, so a story that only barely hangs on shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

Not being to use your customised characters in the campaign until you've completed it, however, was. I mean seriously, the cast of this game are more avatars than they are characters, so forcing you to play as the defaults for the sake of 'canon' or whatever the Hell is really strange. That said, the amount of weapons and cosmetic doodads you can unlock is really appreciative, especially for someone like me who loves him some variety when it comes to their video game characters. The roulette wheel you unlock the stuff from does seem annoyingly biased in the title category, but I unlocked quite a few goodies just from a single completion.

One thing that really took me surprise was how easy this game was. Again, I must reiterate that it's been patched a fair bit since launch, but hearing all of the horror stories involving the train bit in particular never left me with the same impression. Don't get me wrong, the train akrid boss battle is a load of bullshit if you're trying to manage the cannon (especially in single-player where it's practically all up to you), but falling back on the helicopter VS on the cart below was all I needed and I went through little hassle. The ending boss battle was a little confusing, though, and not to mention anti-climatic. But overall I'd say the game is perhaps a bit too easy least on the normal difficulty.

The fact that any sort of AI for the human enemies barely even exists was the biggest contributor. It's been a rather common occurrence for where a human enemy will literally just stand there, empty headed and confused about what's going on around him. Until I add to that empty headedness when I nail a headshot with my ridiculously overpowered Plasma Sniper Rifle. And even when they take action, they'll do little besides shoot at you on the spot. Of course, AI of all kinds has also never been one of Capcom's strong suites.

And even with all of that said, for as much as I enjoy playing the game, there's still some control squibbles that can get on my nerves. Like how you can't use your grappling hook mid-jump or the awkward input you need just to do an evasive roll. See, you can only roll from a crouching position and by then pressing X; not only is this an unnecessarily needless combination of inputs, not only do you crouch by pushing in the left analogue stick, but there's no option to set it to toggle, either. You have to permanently hold in the left analogue stick to crouch... and then press X from that position to roll. It's fucking lunacy!

LP2 also still has its competitive multiplayer of course, but after 3 years on when pretty much 9/10 server is being run by a Japanese player, I found it pretty difficult to compete as I keep getting creamed by weapons I've never even seen before in the story. Plus for as much as I enjoy the heavy everything about this game, I don't think it fitted the competitive scene quite as much.

Still, tinkering about in the campaign has been a bunch of fun, and I got a solid 13 hours worth for a fiver. I originally headed in to LP2 mostly for 'scholarly' purposes, so all in all I came away pretty satisfied with the end result. Make no mistake, even after the fixes, LP2 is a highly flawed game. But there's clear ambition here and some of it at least managed to hit the mark. You just don't find many shooters like this anymore, and LP3 looks to be a lot more generic in regards to the gameplay and is unfortunately an UE3 game at that. The writing and its story still look to be well and beyond prior Lost Planet's, but it's unfortunately comes with the price of morphing into much blander style of shooter.

At the low price Lost Planet 2 can be found at nowadays, I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to try out a shooter that's a little more methodical and deliberate. It's no doubt all the better on PC as well, so getting three mates together to shoot down some giant alien bugs--if this style of game appeals to you--is more than worth the pittance.

I'll be honest, I hadn't actually played a whole lot of DMC2. I can always remember playing through the first few missions, and not enjoying myself while doing so, but I always forget why. So since I've recently gone on a DMC binge, ignited by DmC, I decided to head back into DMC2.

...Good Lord.

It's fucking crazy to think this is in the same franchise as such greats like, well, every other DMC game. It's sort of difficult to truly articulate how bad this game is. I mean, the gameplay is functional, the camera's actually a helluva lot better than it was in the original DMC. But everything else just looks and feels so lifeless, boring, and utterly mind-numbing. The environments for starters are some of the most generic bollocks that I can recently remember! I mean I've admittedly only played throughout the parts where it's all creepy, empty French city streets, but when I pile that on top of the completely comatose enemy AI, your overpowered guns/daggers that you can sometimes literally just stand there shooting ad infinitum, the complete lack of everything involving the cutscenes, I simply can't be bothered to play any more of it.

It's all so incredibly generic and mediocre. This looks like some bargain-bin knock-off of DMC more than an actual DMC game. For as surprisingly serious as the first one takes itself, it still has some small semblance of personality throughout its aesthetic and the cutscenes, whereas DMC2 is completely dry and nonsensical. Dante might as well be a mute (also where did the coin thing come from) and the way cutscenes just end makes the game feel unfinished. From the few bosses that I fought, some don't even have any kind of introduction! It's like literally entering a room and, oh, I guess I'm fighting this giant tentacle monster now for some reason. The bosses themselves are also poorly designed, like that aforementioned tentacle boss, which I didn't even know how to beat exactly.

Its weak-point is its neck and head, but you can't go near it because it's got this constant aura of purple farts surrounding it. The idea is to attack its giant tentacles, which I suppose then give you an opening, but as soon as I managed to damage one of 'em enough to recluse and start on another, it will have already sprouted back again. I mostly won this by taking advantage of the incredibly OP devil trigger and just kept barraging my way through.

Also who the fuck is this Lucia and why does she already have the devil trigger at the start of the game and yet there was literally no formal introduction? And what Unholy Fucker decided that you now enter through doors automatically?! There were a few times where I actually accidentally entered a different area in the midst of a fight because I got too close to a door. Furthermore, all of the doors pretty much look the same as one another, fitted with some some drab texture, so you basically have to hope for the best by just running into door after door to see which will friggen work!

ALSO also, the timing to try and pull off different combos (like triangle triangle, pause, triangle) is frustratingly difficult because they give you what feels like a milisecond of a window to implement the pause. The style meter too is so fucking backwards. I kept trying, what looked like, different combos by mixing in air attacks, drop attacks, back+triangle attacks and yet it barely ever moved. Turns out it only increases the more you simply attack an enemy, but they all die so fucking quickly and the environments are so fucking spacious between each enemy that I can barely ever get higher than a fucking D for any sort of style combo! And when the Hell do you even learn any new moves?? Simply upgrading my weapon's ''power'' doesn't give me a whole lotta sense of character progress/building. Again, I didn't play a lot (maybe up to like mission 4 or 5), but I put in enough time that I should have been given the opportunity to actually invest in some new bloody attacks.

While the combat itself is--as I mentioned earlier--functional, it overall feels really limp, especially as Lucia, who does multiple attacks per button press (so pressing triangle will make her do two swipes with her swords) which, imo, upsets the balance of feeling like you're pulling off those attacks. It comes across as very button mashy; all you need to do is just mash triangle and watch her do a whole flurry of shit.

So, the positives? Well both the camera and the platforming are a significant improvement from the first game. The way Dante and Lucia are almost reaching the Heavens with their double jumpin' can be surprisingly fun to mess around with, and customising your Devil Trigger with all of these additional gems is a neat idea, too. But these small specks of growth are far too high a cost considering everything else that was lost or destroyed in the process.

DMC2 feels like it has no identity. It's all so incredibly monotonous and boring that I can finally understand why so many people have gone so far as to essentially disallow the idea that this game even exists. There's a part in the game where I'm walking along and then suddenly, some orb falls out of the sky hitting your character and you have to reach a certain destination before it drains you of your health. First off all, my brief description is literally all that happens; walking along, orb hits, health starts draining. They've put this sort of scenario in just about every DMC game, but in the others there's a purpose, and there's some actual tension as you struggle to fight while your health is also draining in the process. But for DMC2, not only does it actually drain your health at a barely noticeable rate, not only is the combat still so pitifully easy, but using Devil Trigger will always just regenerate your health right back up anyway! In DMC3, you're actually permanently in DT mode, so you have the extra power, but your health is still steadily dropping by the second. Here... just... nothing. And I think that examples speaks to how incredibly lazy, half-baked, nigh half-finished DMC2 feels. I understand that we're fortunately more or less past all of the angry hubbub concerning DmC, but the people during that catastrophe who would actually rate DMC2 above DmC are either insane, or were very clearly just lashing out for the sake of childish rage.

I've noticed that the general consensous towards the DMC HD collection is:

• DMC1 - Aged poorly, but worth looking into for curiosities sake given that it's the forbearer for its entire genre.

• DMC2 - It was terrible then and it's terrible now.

• DMC3 - Still the height of the series and a fantastic game through and through.

I'd say they're all pretty much spot on.

Pardon the stupid title, but it's just so I can call it something else other than ''top ten of 2012'', and creating the implication that I eat video games is... well, I'd like to think it helps it stand out an extra 0.2334%. Anywhoo:

Video gaming in 2012! The year where I officially began to grow jealous of PC gamers and truly loathe the poor performance issues of console games. Sure, it's kinda always been that way, and by virtue of me being a console gamer for the most of my life (though I did used to play a lot on my PC when I was younger), I don't ask for much. But when we've got games like, say, Far Cry 3 on the PS3 that are chugging along at like 20 fps or less... Fuck that. Fuck that right off. And what's more infuriating is so many gaming publications don't even regard such problems; both that and Assassin's Creed 3 have all been reviewed highly across all platforms, in some cases like Gamespot where each version is awarded the same score! I frankly think something is very wrong with reviews when a game's console port, that will actually give me eye strain the framerate is so bad, is receiving just as much praise as its PC equivalent.

OK, I didn't exactly plan to start this GOTY blog with my little tirade about the plight of the dirty peasant console gamer, but this can at least act as a disclaimer as to why Far Cry 3 isn't on here, when I know for certain that if I could play it the way it was meant to be played, it would be. So getting back to the matter at end, I shall give to you my completely important and valid opinions about my otherwise favourite ten games of the year!

10. Warriors Orochi 3

Actually, since I've also got some long-winded blog rant coming up after sinking around 200+ hours worth into the meat of the entire Warriors franchise (sans Rockstar adaptation unfortunately), I'm gonna leave this one blank. Suffice to say, Warriors Orochi 3 is a pretty fun game. Nearly everything else that preceded it? not so much.

9. Spec Ops: The Line

My reaction to Spec Ops: The Line was rather surprising, but not in the way you'd think. I only ''crossed The Line'' a couple of weeks ago, after the swarm of hype and buzz had already circulated, stating The Line to be something special. The story was meant to act as a bold step forward for military shooters, but the actual gameplay was a little below what one would expect from a shooter released in 2012.

Ironically enough, I found the story to be a wee bit disappointing, and the shooting to be surprisingly engaging. I understood that it was meant to be competent at best, but the shooting overall worked surprisingly well within the context. It all felt brutal, with the way enemies drop via but a few bullets, and the weapons all had a great sense of power to them. Especially as the game goes on, it starts to feel downright draining; the shoot outs are a little long, but I can imagine that's the point and while I was never 'bored' exactly, as the game progresses and our characters continue to degrade into broken down sacks of mud, I was left taking a few breaks here and there. The game also has a superb soundtrack that very lightly balances between making you feel like some sort of badass while at the same time accentuating the completely messed up situations Captain Walker and his team have found themselves in.

The fact that you're mostly gunning down fellow US soldiers in particular was a brave move for the story to take, as was the direction the moral compass sharply directs you towards during the middle of the story. It's a shame that the ending and its twist is super cliché, but the journey to that point was wrought with harrowing scenery and a highly engaging batch of shoot outs up to that point. The writing is pretty good overall, though, and Nolan North definitely pulls in one of his best performances across his entire catalogue of work.

8. Darksiders II

I can completely understand why some are pretty down on Darksiders II. I can understand because I'm one of them! Sort of. There's a lot I like about Darksiders II, even if it's weaker than its predecessor overall. The combat is one such aspect that was greatly improved upon and a made for a great deal of fun, as was the smooth platforming controls and stimulating puzzles. Despite the exhausting amount of time you spend doing the bidding of everyone, including such quests that have quests within quests, and the terribly disappointing and noticeably rushed ending, I was left feeling... content with it all.

The absurd amount of collectibles and the fact that there's no reliable checklist to keep a track of them all was the true bane of this game for me. Had it not been because of my own collectible anxiety, and the fact that your collectible collection actually resets in NG+, I would have gladly invested another 20 hours. With its utterly engrossing soundtrack, enticing loot rewards, and fluid combat that could easily match with some of the best character-action systems out there, Darksiders II succeeded just enough to top where it faltered.

7. Spelunky

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU... Oh, Spelunky. As many can relate, this is the sort of game that has a very love/hate sort of reception - in that even the people that love it probably have some form of hatred bubbling under the surface. I'm as ready to compliment its great controls and addictive platforming and utter unpredictability, to then consequently tear my eyes out afterwards due to that very unpredictability. The caveat is while the randomisation means that you're forever being presented with new and sometimes wholly unique obstacles, it also means that there's a high degree of luck that you have to rely on.

Seriously, trying to bring that fucking key across three worlds and then - oops, you've just entered a stage where there's no light so you have to try and carry a torch as well as the fucking key itself! I haven't even completed it so to speak - the Temple stage was just too much I'm ashamed to admit. But with every snippet of tooth that was chipped away as I grinded my teeth in frustration, it would all lead to a resolution of Miraculous proportions when I would in fact get that fucking key to that fucking tunnel fucking man fucking fuck ffffffffFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUSOHDFQSDASD ihaUDHqasisuGartittiesjOPSQMINNNNGEDWQ HRFC'ERFWRFGEWIFahsahspHSAHahps

6. The Darkness II

The Darkness II is such a game that speaks to a greater question within gaming. When put against its predecessor, The Darkness II is as such a much... safer game. The original, for as shooters go, was surprisingly creative and unique even, with its HUB, side missions, putting in the entire To Kill a Mocking Bird movie for your viewing, first person hugging, and all of the craziness that occurs during the WWI segment. And yet despite that, The Darkness II is an irrevocably better shooter.

The shooting gameplay in the first was kind of a slog frankly, and there was a noticeable shortage of Darkness powers to call from. Darkness II on the other hand has some superb shooting, but it's all confined to what is basically a corridor crawler. It's also significantly shorter at that. It left me asking the question about whether it's worth it for a game to improve upon its gameplay at the expense of a more creative design? Fortunately for as corridor crawl games go, The Darkness II is a standout, with its highly fetching art style just to start things off. And again the shooting is just so riotous and fun, with a decent selection of weapons to the more expansive list of Darkness powers. It's a particularly fast moving game at that, but not in the Call of Duty sense with explosions every which way, but by the utter brutality that your own attacks conjure forth. Using a car door as a shield and then using it to slice a bad guy in half is never not fun. And those executions are fucking gruesome and could potentially even make Kratos himself blush.

It's a shame it has to be so short, but it almost adds a sort of... coziness to it all. It's a strange way to describe a game that involves such an array of decapitations and mutilations, but the length, and not to mention The Darkness II being one of the few ''B-grade'' games out there, gives it an almost ''indie'' feel. The great cast of characters and dialogue also further its likeability and is one such aspect that has survived the 'downgrade' as it where. The shooting is super fun to utilise, but it's the symbiotic relationship between Jackie and The Darkness himself, a list of hilarious supporting characters like the Woody Allen-inspired Johnny Powell, to Jackie's tragic struggle as he tries to get over the death of Jenny, that allowed it to stand out all the more for me.

5. Journey

I'm not an exceptionally... cultured individual, and I'm not exactly all too bright, either. The majority of my family is made up of an entire clan of dopes, and there's nothing that I can do about it. I am what I am, and I've accepted that fact... more or less. Point is I'm not the sort of fellow that divulges in the truly 'artsy' side of media. I've never bothered trying out any of thatgamecompany's prior work just as an example, but the amount of high praise that was being lavished all over Journey forced my hand, so I indulged the shit out of this thing.

And it's so fucking beautiful. Like, maaaan, playing through this and witnessing its wonders suddenly makes the world around me feel that much brighter, and all of life's problems feel petty in comparison to the sheer magnitude of what was on display on my TV.

OK, no, I'm stretching it a little there, and I don't mean to mock it, because Journey truly is an outstanding experience. The utterly gorgeous visuals are a treat for the eyes, and the act of travelling across this barren wasteland was almost bittersweet. For as beautiful as everything looks, the somewhat open-ended story and noticeably lonely adventure I went through made me feel... I dunno, it just made me feel damn it! The way it integrated cooperative gameplay was also memorable to say the least; I don't think I'll ever forget when my anonymous companion and I tried our best to brave that mountain, nor when you then fly up that son'bitch all the way to Scarf Heaven or whatever. Watching my little brother play it afterwards, I was surprised at how it still got to me just by watching it all again.

4. Sleeping Dogs

It's just goofy fun - pure and simple I honestly haven't had this much fun traipsing throughout an open-world crime game since Saints Row 2! The story, while predictable with some kinda 'eh' characters, was entertaining to follow regardless. It's the open-world madness that I especially enjoyed; sprinting throughout the world, bulldogging poor civilians onto the pavement, throwing people into the trunk of my car, then jumping out with a gun in slo-mo and watching it explode just with a single bullet was forever hilarious and devilishly satisfying. Or when I'd drive around in a car but would pull out my gun, which also enacts slow-mo, and just drive around knocking people over. What was great was how even the music was slowed down to a degree, making it all sound like something out of Enya's discography.

I had a surprising amount of fun messing around with the guns to be honest, mixing it in with the slow-mo like the aforementioned examples. But then there's still the fast, fluid and hardhitting melee combat and the large number of rewarding collectibles. Sleeping Dogs is one of those games that after all is said and done, you then go back just to make your own fun. It quite frankly out-sandbox'd Saints Row The Third for me personally and gave a world with a great deal of detail and stuff happening; so much so that then proceeding to wreak havoc across its streets was made all the more hilarious.

Certain issues aside, like a lot of the throwaway girlfriend characters and that the vehicles feel like they're made of tinfoil, Sleeping Dogs was a treat to behold. As someone who was rooting it for a good long while before its release, it made for a pleasant surprise to witness its reception and see there are plenty who would agree.

3. Silent Hill: Downpour

Oh, Silent Hill. As seemingly everyone else continues their apathy, I can't help but cling on to what little I have amongst the depressingly little amount of survival horror stuff to be found. On consoles most especially. I'm more than willing to admit that at least a part of my forgiving nature for Downpour perhaps stems from the fact that, well, what the fuck else there? Regardless, I had a really enjoyable time with Downpour. It's basically classic survival horror, only taken to a grander scale with the mostly open town of Silent Hill to explore. It has its share of problems sure. The enemy design and lack of variety was disappointingly weak; the soundtrack, while fine, doesn't strike the right level of making me outright disturbed while I'm playing; and most importantly of all, the story is kinda rubbish and doesn't have a lot of consequence. I had already envisioned where it may be going and it sounded like it could unveil to be something messy but... no dice.

Now a Silent Hill game starring a naff narrative will leave many wondering what else would there be to latch on. Fortunately, exploring Silent Hill itself was really intriguing and appropriately unnerving at times. The small multitude of self-contained side stories littered throughout were also rather interesting, such as one involving you warping into a film, to another where you have to rewind time using a gramophone. And then there's the fantastically creepy Hansel & Gretel psychological set-piece. It was most importantly refreshing to finally be handed such a large portion of the town to explore; part of what was so enjoyable about the first Silent Hill's was exploring at your own leisure for additional supplies or just to simply uncover more of the town.

If there was perhaps a little more competition in the horror department, Downpour might not rank so highly, but it would have still snagged a spot somewhere on here all the same.

2. Borderlands 2

Hey, I liked Borderlands! A lot! So much so that Borderlands 2 quite literally being more of the exact same didn't faze me. Thing is what made Borderlands 2 so special to me was, Borderlands 2 was not only more of the same, it was more of the same but better. Practically everything about it was improved upon! You've got this radar instead of relying on that antiquated compass thingy; each class has, like, double the amount of skills available (though I did miss playing as Lilith, if only because of how OP she got); the majority of the quests all feature voiced dialogue; and furthermore, I actually grew to care about the story!

That's what left me surprised during my playtime, as I travelled across with some actual goals in mind; an actual narrative to follow! There were admittedly still a lot of rather annoying characters, though, with Scooter in particular - especially since his voice actor changed his voice up a little from the original to make him sound even more annoying. Just... fuck that inbred shit. Fortunately there was Handsome Jack to balance it out... Sort of. He's a detestable cunt, but because he's meant to be. I grew to hate him thanks to the brilliantly effective performance by Dameon Clarke and some pretty decent writing to go with it. Yes, some of it is hit and miss, but overall I was still left with plenty of reasons to giggle (Mal the Hyperion robot especially) and actually have some additional motivation besides ''MOAR LOOTZ''.

Any complaints that it's too iterative are totally justified, but for myself I just couldn't resist more opportunities to Borderland and Borderlands 2 delivered what I wanted on a silver platter. It also gave me a Dwarf to play as, and video games need more playable Dwarfs damn it all!

1. The Walking Dead

A lot of discussion was brought up about whether this is even a game. I can certainly see why such a question would arise, given that the most prominent form of character agency is via dialogue choices. But there are still other such adventure game tropes in there, like occasionally going on a pixel hunt or even turning into some shooting gallery. They're not exactly very taxing, and that radio puzzle during the first episode is a particularly moronic ''puzzle'', but just because they're bad if not highly rudimentary doesn't exactly detract from whether it's a game or not.

It probably stands out all the more because certain episodes feature more agency than others; riding high off of Episode 5 with pretty much nuttin' but dialogue options, it's an understandable conclusion. When taken as a whole 12-15 hour game, compiling all of the episodes together, I think this deserves to stand as a game. However, I'm still conflicted because the reason why I've got it up as my No1. is because of the story and the way you can shape your own Lee, not because of how ''solved'' how to put batteries into a radio.

Very similar to the Mass Effect trilogy, The Walking Dead has a very strong illusion of choice; an awfully strong smokescreen attempting to make you think your choices actually matter. What it excels at significantly more so than Mass Effect at, however, is you building upon your own interpretation of the main character, Lee. You won't be choosing the gender/name/origin, but you build relationships with the cast; they'll perceive you differently; they'll remember things you may have, or haven't, said and so forth. Besides that, there's still plenty of actual decisions to make of course. Some of which, while may not shape how things will play out all that much, will have a lasting effect on Lee himself and any other such characters. Clementine especially. It goes to places other such franchises wouldn't even dream, and it's right to commend such an ambition. As an adventure game, the story and the writing obviously trumps all else, but it really succeeds in how your own player choices are taken into consideration. One such scene nearing the end where you're ostensibly ''judged'' by the game for all of your choices, while a tad incredulous, was a particularly standout moment as it addresses what sort of man you have turned Lee into.

You. By which I mean me. By which I also mean player... right? Yeah, that sounds like something someone who knows what they're talking about would say.

Special Mentions!

I just also want to add two other games which while aren't... ''officially'' apart of my GOTY 2012 list as they were released in prior years, still stood as two of my favourite games of this year:

Gears of War 3

I really enjoy me the Gears games, so not only did I find Gears 3 to be a damn fine shooter, but also to be the best Gears game of the three. A fantastic campaign, if a little flat during the middle segments when you're travelling through the desert-y areas, with some superb offerings in terms of both multiplayer and cooperative. I even managed to snag in some online time--which is a rarity for me on the 360--with @GunstarRed and overall, Gears 3 basically lasted me through the summer. I wrote up a blog detailing my experiences with both Gears 3 and my temporary return back to Uncharted 3 at that. It's too bad I got around it so late because it would score a pretty high mark on last years. And when I've got friggen Hydrophobia Prophecy on there, then you know I was a little starved for choice.

And I actually sort of liked Hydrophobia Prophecy btw.

As such I'm really excited for Judgment, if not only for another Gears campaign, but to also potentially join in the chainsawing online along with the flock of other such new players so I'll perhaps be on some even ground for a change.

Valkyria Chronicles

Turns out I bloody love strategy games. I mean I played a staggering amount of Hogs of War when I was a little cherub, but I kinda veered away because most tended to flock to the PC. Playing Valkyria Chronicles has also left me a little disheartened that I didn't check out XCOM, as I'd have probably end up sticking that on here at that. Anywhoo first things first: The story, the characters and the overall quality of writing are fucking terrible. OK, terrible is maybe a little harsh and fucking terrible is a bit of a violent tinge that perhaps isn't required -- point is it's not very good. It's filled with a bunch of melodramatic rubbish, generally poor voice acting despite the pedigree (basically everyone who voices acts in video games is in this thing), and a sea of terribly archetypal characters.

The idealist main hero who loves nature, what a goofball! The love interest who... um, is a girl? The step-sister who's of a race that has suffered prejudice! The middled aged guy! Robin Atkin Downes! Who basically does nothing but spout exposition! The eeeeeevil Maximillian guy! A fucking pig mascot?! Gah, and the writing! I'll mostly read whatever it is the characters are gabbing, just for context, and then skip the audio because quite frankly, barely anyone ever has anything all that interesting to say. And I have to admit, I actually giggled when one of the major characters was killed. I'm not a cruel person; I haven't made a habit out of laughing at death, but FFS... What's that you say, Main Hero? You want to be the bridge that connects all life/race/animals/whatever? Fuck you, you annoyingly good natured, soft spoken, 1-dimensional twat!

That's enough of that in any case. I only listed such 'qualities' because that then only speaks to how awesome everything else is. There's a lot of versatility here, which is perhaps nothing new to strategy (or is it tactics?) game vets, but for myself I couldn't help but be impressed at how many options the game gives to play your way. And while it starts off slow, it's to your own benefit as things steadily begin to become more and more complex. Managing all of the classes, weapons, experience points, R&D, tank parts, and with how seemingly every mission introduces new sorts of obstacles -- it can feel a little overwhelming at times. What I especially enjoy is how difficult this game feels, whether it actually is or not, and how it then results in such resounding satisfaction when I manage to beat a level. A superb game, and one more reason as to why I'm grateful for my PS3. Its graphics still look pretty alright considering its age, though the character models during the cutscenes and 'talking head' scenes animate poorly and look more like dolls.

It's been quite a refreshing experience as well, as action/adventure and shooters tend to stand at the forefront of my gaming habits.

Other Stuff!

And here's some bullet points to showcase other games that I've generally enjoyed, but not quite enough to make the cut:

• Mass Effect 3 - Yup. While it's definitely the worst overall Mass Effect game, it still features some of my favourite moments across the entire trilogy. Plus the shooting is pretty great.

• I Am Alive - Great gameplay, if a little fiddly, and while the story is pancake quality flat, there's still just dat survival gameplay!

• Dragon's Dogma - If this was contained in a smaller scale, like a dungeon crawler, or at least had the decency to feature fast travel, mounts or a dynamic world that didn't spawn the exact same bandits and monsters in the exact same places every goddamn time, this could have easily ranked as one of my top five games of 2012. The actual gameplay is fantastic, but the open-world nature is like a poison that slowly saps the energy out of the game as I'm forced to walk everywhere.

• Max Payne 3 - Another solid game, with some incredibly heavy and appreciatively weighty shooting. Story was a little confusing and not all that engaging, and the fact that you can't skip the cutscenes placed too many hurdles to leap across when playing score attack mode, but I had a blast all the same.

• Hitman: Absolution - I was really mixed during the early portions, but fortunately as it turns out they're the worst segments in the game. It just kept getting better and better, with a lot more sandboxy areas to fun scenarios like that one segment in the desert -- jus' so fucking cool, man! Now this too had a high chance in snagging a spot on my oh-so-prestigious (and Yummy) list of honours; however, as many will agree, the shitty design of the checkpointing and disguises were severe enough to drag so much of the good down with the bad unfortunately.

• Lego Batman 2 - Perfectly fine Lego game; in fact I'd go as far as to say it's a pretty great Lego game. But that's all it is, and after doing the same thing for so many years, the repetitive combat is only becoming more prone to criticism, and the allure of exploring missions with alternate characters is long gone. The open-world HUB was really fun to explore and mess around, though, and it still managed to get a hearty 12 hours or so outta me.

Annnnd here's a list of games I wish I could have played this year but couldn't, most likely because of the unfortunate limitations I have courtesy of my rubbish PC, or because I just never got around to it:

• Dishonored
• XCOM
• Hotline Miami
• Resident Evil: Revelations
• ZombiU
• Far Cry 3...

And that's that, another year wrapped up as it were as I'm probably going to spend the remainder of this month playing the stuff I'm still currently playing. Hopefully XCOM will probably appear somewhere on me next years.

Er, and here's some outro music I guess.

I decided to write this up a blog first because when I started, I couldn't actually post it as a user-review yet. Then I got so far in that even though I now can, I figured I'd still post this as a blog anywhoo! So.. hear it is. Also I'm hardly what you could call a talented writer, so just an FYI if anyone should bother reading this but hasn't read any of my previous user-reviews before.

Oh boy. Where to even begin? I've been a fan of this franchise since the very beginning back in 1996; Resident Evil was my childhood, and the very original just so happened to be one of the first games that I played. I adored this stuff during the 90s and early oughts. However, once came Resident Evil 4, things changed. Now I'm not going to lambaste Resident Evil 4 as some evil mark of damnation--it's a great game by all means--but it's not why I personally came to this series; it's not why I was so stuck in from the moment I entered the Spencer Mansion.

Yet still I persevered! Then Resident Evil 5 came along and all that I hold dear within the series continued to slip away even further. I was losing more and more of what I enjoyed about Resident Evil, and still did I stand by its side. Like some abused housewife who couldn't bear to let go out of loyalty or something... And now we have Resident Evil 6. And now, I feel that I may have just reached my limit.

Resident Evil 6 is a shooter. There's no getting around it. The adventure elements of what was once an action/adventure series have now been squeezed out of the equation almost completely. There's a cover system, there's a down but not out system, there's set-pieces galore, and more than half of the game consists of you fighting against enemies who can shoot you back. But the hilarious and most depressing thing is Resident Evil 6 isn't even a very good shooter; after squandering so much in favour of a broader market, this is what I've been given in return? Now I'm not going to slam down on Resident Evil 6 at every turn, as there are certain elements that I thought were at least... creative. Like the story structure for starters.

Featuring not one, not two, and not even three but four campaigns, Resident Evil 6's story mode is vast. As is the cast of protagonists that make up the story as well: including the likes of Leon S. Kennedy and Chris Redfield canonically starring together in a Resident Evil game for the first time (though not as partners, I regret to say) along with ultra-mysterious femme fatale Ada Wong, and even the likes of Sherry Birkin returns since her last appearance all the way back in Resident Evil 2. It's not just old faces, however, as we have Secret Service agent and drop-kicking aficionado Helena Harper, B.S.A.A. sniper Piers Nivans, and buzzcut sporting badass mercenary Jake Muller. Oh, who is by the way the legitimate son of one Albert Wesker.

The multitude of characters and their respective campaigns were supposed to allow Resident Evil 6 to have a little 'something' for everybody, though they really don't diverge quite as much as CAPCOM would have you believe. What separates them the most is what enemies you'll be facing; Leon's campaign sees the return of zombies, Chris' and Jake's has you doing battle against the J'avo--a B.O.W. shock trooper who sorta function as RE6's replacement for the Ganado/Majini--and Ada's will have you doing battle against both (not simultaneously, however) as her story progresses. Each of the campaign's are usually happening concurrently with another at that, and each cast of characters will inevitably meet up with the other. It's pretty cool to be playing through Leon's & Helena's campaign only to run into Chris & Piers, and then play through Chris' campaign and see that same scenario from the other side.

However, what all four campaigns suffer from is the over-abundance of terribly scripted set-pieces and an exhausting amount of quick time events. Even though the general combat isn't very satisfying on its own, the game really begins to drag once you're forced to just run towards the screen while the camera awkwardly transitions around you, or to play through some tame vehicular segments like riding a bike or a snowmobile - all of which are incredibly strict in what you can and cannot do, and mixed in with a lot of surprise QTE's will invariably force you to try most of them multiple times. They're not exciting nor thrilling in any way and it's just another swing and a miss for CAPCOM trying to turn Resident Evil into something so completely out of the realm of what the series used to be. There's even the occasional stealth segment in here that's like right out of something from the mid 90s. Oh, and underwater segments... Seriously. You couple that with the general design of levels having a slew of conveniently placed red barrels everywhere and Resident Evil 6 starts to look the kind of bad action game pulled right out of 90s twisted with some of the worst trends of the current generation. Almost like how Duke Nukem Forever is an amalgamation of everything that sucked about 90s first-person shooters but also with a modern day shooter weapon limit.

OK, so for a bit of positivity just to balance this out a bit more, Leon's campaign is... OK in spots. Intended to evoke 'nostalgia' for the Resident Evil 4 era, Leon's isn't quite as action-packed as his compatriots. In fact there's some pretty decent pacing during certain early portions of his campaign, and traversing through the lightning-covered skies of a graveyard, or attempting to survive along side a small group of survivors inside a gun store, made for some fitting scenarios. The majority of Leon's chapters situated within Tall Oaks overall have some great atmosphere, and the moment when you hit the zombie-infested streets and are greeted with fiery chaos made for an excellent thrill. Playing straight from Veteran mode, the zombies were surprisingly durable and actually left me panicking in some spots, and there were even some situations that ask of you to choose flight rather than fight.

However, issues such as how you can't shoot the 'corpses' on the floor that you just know are going to eventually wake up and attack (which they do) persist throughout. In fact there's a lot of really hokey attempts at 'scares', like how so often when you near a corpse laying up against a wall it will slump down on to the ground, or a section where you're trying to find the keys to start a car; it'd be pretty tense if there was some kind of fail-state to it, but no, you can literally just leave it there and it'll continue on in a loop. Leon's campaign also features the odd puzzle here and there, though they're laughably basic and don't really require much thought. Once Leon's travels takes him to China, it takes a complete nosedive with a significant increase in QTE-fueled set-pieces, eliminating the tone and style of the Tall Oaks sections.

The boss battles--most notably the final few nearing the end--are also horrendous, and not just in Leon's campaign but across the entire game, with very little feedback as to whether what you're doing is even working - punctuated by many who also have attacks that can come out of nowhere and completely empty your entire health bar. The camera is just far too close to the character mode as well, and as such can make trying to traverse through some of the more enclosed environments an absolute nightmare

Chris' and Jake's campaign is where it all really starts to fall apart, however. Posing as some sort of Gears clone, Chris' has you going against the J'avo, who basically function like brain-dead Lambent Drones. To start things off, the shooting isn't especially satisfying, and in fact with the added ability of melee attacks that you can now utilise whenever you like, you can often just run up to most enemies and start wailing on them. But the melee itself isn't incredibly intuitive either, and can be awfully sluggish sometimes leaving you kicking thin air as a J'avo walks past. You do have a stamina gauge that wears down with every melee attack so you can't be roundhouse kicking forever, but then you only need to fall back on your guns and tear right through everything. The J'avo have terrible AI, and even though much like the Ganado and Majini will go through some pretty disgusting transformations, for most of the mutations your tactics don't diverge too much and you need only just keep shooting. Or you could even just run past most of them.

There's also cover system in play, but it's cumbersome to perform; basically you just press L1 (which is also how you aim your weapon) and you'll automatically line up in cover if a wall's close enough... but you have to hold on to L1 while you're doing it. In some of the enclosed spaces during Chris' campaign there were many moments where I was fighting the terrible camera as much as the J'avo, as I accidentally kept taking cover when I just wanted to aim my gun. The cover system isn't even all that helpful, either. Because you basically shrug off bullets (up to a point, until you awkwardly fall to the ground) you can sometimes just charge in while the J'avo kinda flutter about looking all confused. There's also a dive you can do by pressing the cross button and a direction, but only while you're aiming first. Should you keep a hold of the aiming button after the dive, you can stay laying on your back and fire from there. It takes some getting used to, but it actually works well enough.

Jake's is more or less the same as Chris', though his features a tad more lame set-piece moments and isn't quite as plentiful in ammunition as Chris', promoting the idea for you to rely a little more heavily on melee attacks. Once you've completed the main three, you then unlock Ada's campaign, which mixes in a bit of everything; every shade of shit is on display for Ada's. Nah, that's a bit harsh. Ada easily takes 2nd place, and while by virtue of it being more Resident Evil 6, it isn't great, but there are some memorable moments here and there, and Chapter 4's boss battle in particular is legitimately kinda decent

The story is incredibly bombastic as it spans multiple countries and ratchets up the amount of explosions tenfold. And while I can understand that many don't exactly hold much regard for any of the Resident Evil game's story, I have inevitably grown an attachment to the fiction and its cast. Unfortunately, a lot of it doesn't really pay off; despite portraying itself as a much more melancholic and serious tale in the marketing, there's just about as many corny one-liners and now a whole lot of slo-mo to rival a Michael Bay flick. Chris' story and his deteriorating mental state doesn't quite go as far as I'd have liked, either. I wanted more from these characters; I wanted Chris in particular to perhaps grow beyond being the typical 80s action hero Mary Sue. And there are certainly times where Chris is clearly thrown to the edge, but it's largely of no consequence. The voice acting is at least pretty decent, with Roger Craig Smith carrying on as Chris and Troy Baker nicely fitting in to the role of Jake perfectly.

While the overall story begins to make some sort of coherence once all of the four campaigns are behind you, there is a startling amount of history and backstory to the events that, instead of being given centre stage within the main game, are delegated to out-of-the-way files you can read in the ''Special Features'' section. Once you piece it all together, it's infinitely more fascinating (though it's still not that great mind you) and it's a crying shame that so much of the narrative is cordoned as text that can't even be found as memos or something across the main game.

Unlike Resident Evil 4 and 5, you're no longer buying weapons, and you'll instead find weapons as dictated by the campaign. And instead of upgrading them, now you purchase Skills which you can equip three at a time. They all have predictable buffs like increased firearm damage, increased defence, more ammunition drops and so forth. You can also set eight different combinations and then choose between mid-game to help you adapt. Though because the gameplay is so shallow anyway, I never found much incentive to experiment with different combinations nor do I have a drive to grind out chapters to afford better Skills.

Resident Evil 6 at least makes for a more accessible single player game than Resident Evil 5, however. Now your AI squad-mate is primarily there as a tag along for the story; there's no inventory management between characters, and your partner is invincible with infinite ammo. It's also surprisingly capable and can take down enemies efficiently enough while is also always there to help you up should when you fall into the 'dying' state.

Cooperative play is of course still available, though Ada's campaign is surprisingly enough a solo affair. Ordinarily, though, it's just two players. Until the stories coincide with one another that is. Now once two characters from one story meet up with another, you can then head into matchmaking and pair yourself with another two players to usually fight a boss battle or something. Which is at least a rather interesting twist for cooperative play, even if adding another two players to the mix doesn't make the shooting nor boss battles any less unsatisfying. There's also a lot more splitting up between partners this time around and more situations where each player takes on a different role; such as one character playing guardian angel to another ect. Though they don't always necessarily work. Nearing the end of Leon's, there's a boss battle where Leon is down below on a bridge whereas Helena is up top. Problem is there's not a whole lot of ammo there, and while the game is... 'generous' enough to continually respawn enemies to drop ammo whence killed for you, playing as Helena for that part was incredibly boring.

Frankly that's pretty much a decent way to sum up a lot of Resident Evil 6's gameplay - it's really boring. Generally mediocre at best and absolutely frustrating at its worst, playing Resident Evil 6 quickly became nothing but a chore. And while I wouldn't consider it an absolute mess, there was a point where I was piloting a fucking Jet and I asked myself: Is this really what Resident Evil has become? This is what it's all lead to?

As I stare at the screen after finally completing the entirety of Resident Evil 6, I'm given pause; it occurs to me that I actually feel really rather depressed about this outcome. Maybe it's because I know this is the end? Resident Evil 6 could very well be the finality of the series, and frankly it deserves better - much better. After 16 years of following and obsessing over this series, even when the reasons why I loved this series to begin with started to slowly dissipate, I must now face the possibility that Resident Evil ends not as any kind of survival horror game nor even as a fun action horror game, but as a boring and clumsy set-piece driven shooter.

Hurray! I've just completed Borderlands 2! It certainly took me a while, but I decided to take my time with it (even so much as creating an alt while I was in the middle of my first playthrough) doing just about every side quest available, spending like up to an hour at a time on the slot machines... and there's been plenty of occasions where I've left the game running when I've gone to do something else, so I've undoubtedly added a lot of padding to my overall playtime. But regardless of how much time was spent, that time was spent having a bloody lot of fun.

I mean it's true, Borderlands 2 is simply more Borderlands -- *Morederlands ect ect.* And as someone who absolutely adores Borderlands, I was plenty content in following the same waypoints everywhere and being spurned on by the ever attractive proposition of more stuff. The game's also really funny! Even if, yes, the challenge stuff is filled with a bunch of lazy callbacks to jokes from the mid naughts (oughts?) that weren't even all that funny to begin with. But a large majority of the writing surrounding the enemies you face, and not to mention the brilliant variety of side missions (Jack asking you to kill yourself; SHOOT HIM IN THE HEAD guy; And of course Mal, the hyperion robot who's going through a bit of an identity crisis) all completely overshadow the few still very poor memetic jokes you may encounter here and there.

There is one thing that felt... not so much out of place, but like it too was going through some sort of identity crisis; a transition to say the least. By which I of course mean the story. However, before I go any further, it still has to be applauded that it's actually a story. The first game was primarily just a bunch of quests filtered through goofy characters with a big ole MacGuffin snuggled in the middle. Borderlands 2 actually has a narrative. You're no longer permitted to just read through a wad of text per every quest, and Gearbox have certainly learned well from their time with stuff like General Knoxx and its stronger focus on storytelling. We now have what resembles an actual structure, a more prominent villain to put a 'face' too, and Holy Shit there's so much more dialogue in this game.

Just like havin' another Soldier on the field!

That one line of ad-libbed dialogue is pretty much all I had to define Roland during the first game--my main was Lilith, but I enjoyed the game enough that I eventually got around to giving 'em all a go--along with the rest of the cast. They were avatars more than actual characters, with a little splice of personality draped on top. And now.... now Roland never fucking shuts up! With all of his serious-face freedom fighting talk, it's a little jarring to see what were more or less one-dimensional characters to then... suddenly evolve to, well, two-dimensional characters. I guess it's also pretty cool. I mean I even created a thread on here stating the potential 'coolness' for such a path for the original vault hunters to follow. Though I was more so picturing them as trainers or cameos, not as essentially the leading protagonists of the entire plot.

Right, because once again our playable 'stars' aren't exactly the leading characters of this tale. In a weird twist of events, now the blank slates from the original are the one's talking up a storm at every turn while this new cast fill in the now vacant roles as yet another cast of vacant avatars for the player. And it's especially weird what with all of this added substance towards the narrative. Especially the whole Siren thing; Lilith's this uber-Siren and that's a pretty big deal, and yet me, as Maya, barely gets any recognition whatsoever. In fact in some cases my character is even referred to as a 'he', when I'm not being called as a Vault Hunter, Soldier or 'Slab'... God, that last one's annoying.

Steps have been made, though. The backstory ECHO tape you start off with, and can later scavenge more of, flesh out the playable cast more so than anything found in the original. They have a history, they actually have their own somewhat tangible reason for being here. But aside from some audio-logs, they're still just empty vessels for the player to inhabit and take up the role of.

Which I can certainly still understand mind you. If you were to play as an actual character with well defined motivations and moralities, such quest sets like setting up two gangs to murder each other simply for fun--which includes such ploys as killing the son of the gang leader so as to frame the opposing gang leader--would seem just a wee bit out of place... as is freeing a load of skags and stalkers from a Hyperion wildlife prison, only to actually kill a whole horde of 'em on your way. In fact nearly all of the side missions feel completely out of sync with the main story as it is anywhoo. Your character is a merciless monster, and while there's little characterisation for the new set of vault hunters, what is there doesn't quite set up someone like Maya for example as a mass-murdering mercenary. She clearly enjoys killing things (as does everyone on Pandora), but not to the extent of that gang war thing maybe. So expanding upon such a character would only cause more of dat ludo-narrative dissonance stuff, I guess.

Holy Shit sad things keeps happening!

As I've said, Borderlands 2 actually has a story, including some surprisingly dark chapters within. And not the humourous sort of ''teehee, bandit head goes boom!'' dark, but ''this is the moment where you're meant to feel really depressed now'' kind.

BloodWing, no! Roland, no!! Angel... fffffffffffff -- OK first off, I have to say that I personally found Handsome Jack to be an exceptionally effective villain. I mean I really hated this guy; I actually felt some twisted satisfaction after killing his equally psychotic and comically evil girlfriend (that Sheriff lady) or when I'd be knocking his statues throughout the city of Opportunity and he'd get all pissed off. Because goddamn, how... just... Handsome Jack is simply one of the most detestable and utterly evil characters I can recently recall (I know there are most likely more, but you get my point). But it's juxtaposed to such a degree. I mean one minute I'm shooting this guy in the face because he wants me to and I'm giggling about it for minutes after, and the next I'm enveloped in gut-ripping (OK, overselling it a little, I'll admit) emotion as Mordecai grieves over his bird. Hell, not just his bird, but my bird! My bird that I loved to throw at crazed psychos for an entire playthrough of Borderlands.

And then Roland, who, after the camera position has aligned itself up perfectly for 'someone's gonna die now', gets fucking smoked! Although y'know, I cared more for Bloodwing than I did Roland... Oh, and then there's the entire Angel segment. Now there's a twist to remember. EDIT: Also, how come Roland couldn't just be revived via the New-U machine? Did 'removing' his title as a Vault Hunter strip him of his reviving capabilities?... Y'know what, I'm willing to let that one slide for simplicities sake.

Now I'm not complaining about all of this mind you. I mean given that part my love for games like Saints Row 2 and Sleeping Dogs stems specifically for mixing in absurdity and human drama, it would be contradictive of me to suddenly shake my head in shame at Borderlands 2's own mixture. It's just with this calibre of storytelling being taken on, and Borderlands isn't quite the mindless skag slaughterhouse that it used to be, I'd want my character to join in on some of this development.

Borderworlds!

So besides the obvious fact that there's going to be some interplanetary travel happening in this theoretical sequel, what I'd also hope is they build upon your players characters to a degree not unlike Darksiders II or LOTR; War in the North So then you're clearly playing as pre-defined characters, but you still have the option to start up conversations and have the power to chime in on scenes. Converse with other characters beyond a one-sided to-do list.

Furthermore, each character could even have unique side-quests to attain. So say we have another freakshow like Salvador joining in, with all of the dialogue to prove it, such quests like the gang war one would still fit. Or not! Because I'd be more than happy to stomach some disconnect between my character and what the game is asking my character to do so long as my character is still a character. Character character character.

TL;DR Blurb!

Borderlands 2 is bitchin', and the narrative advancements they've built upon are were unexpected, but ultimately a welcome surprise. The way the game keeps connecting everything that happened in the original back to Borderlands 2 and Hyperion was also nicely done; it actually makes the original game feel more... substantial in retrospec, even though deep down we all know they only decided to work Hyperion into bloody everything during the writing of Borderlands 2. Revisiting T.K Baha's hut in particular was still surprisingly nostalgic, however, and even a little sad (but also funny) to hear about how his predicament came to be. I just hope that Gearbox will continue on up this slope and put forward the same amount of effort onto the next playable cast of whoever.

P.S!

The ending, along with the boss, was still a total wash. I just went through the same routine, using the same gun, shooting at The Warrior's glowy gut until it dived back under the lava. It barely ever attacked me and those volcano crystal monsters were hardly even noticeable. They put so much effort into making this thing such a powerful entity of absolute Absolutes.. they placed all of those ammo spawns and everything, and yet I barely had to move nor did I ever need to collect any additional ammo. The actual ending itself wasn't much better and pretty abrupt at that... but it done enough in at least setting the course for where the series may go from here. Still a great game, though, and I'm more than ready to head into NG+!

Uncharted 3 and Gears of War 3 are sort of kindred spirits, often put against one another because they're both cover-based shooters each exclusive to their own console. But as anyone who's played only an hours worth can tell you, the similarities are only skin deep and even then they're still pretty far apart. After playing a fair bit of multiplayer for both recently, the multiplayer is one such feature that more strikingly details the differences between the two games from a gameplay standpoint.

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Gears The Third!

I got into Gears relatively late, only at around 2009 when I also invested in a 360 - primarily for the exclusives, like Gears naturally. And I love this series! I love the shooting, I love the weapons, I love massacring the locust, I like the characters, and the 'roided up aesthetic of the Gears themselves look pretty awesome to me. They're like action figures! It was only very recently--literally like a couple of weeks ago from now--that I actually first played some Gears multiplayer via Gears of War 3, however. As you can imagine, I've spent a lot of my time getting completely pulverised from every which angle - most often the back, though a shotgun to the face is also very common. I've managed to play enough that I can hold my own... more or less. There are still times where I'm completely left there sitting in a pool of my own tears out of frustration, but there are times where I've even hit the top score of a match.

I played with a lot of bots for quite some time and I've always been reluctant to get me some GOLD to go against real players. But the bots are, well, fucking stupid as you may expect. Even on the 'insane' AI setting, I can easily cleave me way through 'em all. I was getting fed up and it simply wasn't satisfying anymore because I know that facing off against real players functions nothing like a bot match. Fortunately as luck would have it, my little brother happened to have a free month's worth of GOLD and opted to give it to me.

Even before heading online, I was able to grasp the mechanics pretty easily. I'm often able to get the active-reload bonus without fail and, unlike Uncharted 3, Gears 3 still primarily functions as a cover-based shooter. The overall feel of the game is also incredible! The idea that the Gears games control all sluggish and clunky is frankly a terrible misconception, most likely from people who haven't actually played the games. Trust me, Gears of War 3 moves fast! Roadie running, cover bouncing or whatever the Hell it is, rolling out of the way leading into a swift retreat - the best Gears of War 3 players play like a fucking machine. The controls overall are so tight, so responsive that rarely is it the game's fault that you now find yourself as a pile of gooey gibs lathered across the floor.

Because of said haste, however, the shotgun is also the most commonly used weapon. That's not some secret of the trade or anything of course; I imagine most people are well aware of the shotgun dominance that populates the Gears multiplayer. In fact there are a significant amount of players who will literally just charge around everywhere using nothing but the gnasher shotgun. And why wouldn't they? Should you ever manage to master the art of wall-bouncing or whatever the Hell, you can easily run right up to someone while they're shooting at you, barely taking any damage and BAM - your head's gone. What's more annoying than how an entire arsenal is sometimes discarded for just one weapon, though, is how I simply can't seem to compete at that level of shotgun proficiency. Now I don't strictly stick to my shotgun or anything, in fact I most often rely on my retro lancer, but naturally the shotgun is the go-to weapon for close-range combat and rushes. And I can, at times, even manage to nail me some lucky blindfire headshots and to even sneak up on an unsuspecting player and do to him/her what so many have done to me before hand.

Unfortunately, those shotgun duels that often erupt when it's you and another guy strafing around with a shotgun don't very often tend to go my way. Or whenever I'm bum rushed, there's a good chance that they'll swiftly be able to get in close without me barely getting a shot in in. I don't want to completely push myself into the mud here, though. I would say that I'm still OK at the game, despite my limited experience.

Because of how Gears 3's multiplayer is generally structured--cordoning your own segments of the map where the best weapons spawn by placing grenades and camping your ass down, actually using cover and flanking tactics to counter said cover, and not to mention how in TDM you have a limited set of lives--killing another player feels highly gratifying. And having the luck (because when it comes to shotgunning, that's really what a lot of it is down to for me) to potentially take on two at once can also make me feel like a bloody champion.

To actually reflect my own inexperience and sometime-reliance on luck, my Gear of choice is Benjamin Carmine - the best Carmine ;). As I've said earlier, retro lancer is my primary weapon and surprisingly enough it works for me favour quite a bit of time. When it's active-reloaded it can tear right through a player quicker than a shotgun if they can't get outta the way quick enough, and it's great for catching players off-guard and downing 'em without needing to snuggle right up into ass with the shotgun. Speaking of which, the gnasher shotgun is my shotty of course since the sawed-off doesn't seem worth it; its slow reload and single shot feature hinders what is otherwise a sort of redundant ability to kill anyone in close range with said single shot because the gnasher is frankly almost as effective within that range.

Anywhoo for the sake of such a substantial amount of text, I figure I should probably do a TL;DR edition to easily digest my pros and cons - in bullet points!

Pros:

• Controls brilliantly.
• Runs really smooth with little evidence of lag on my end.
• Weapons still feel just as powerful in the multiplayer as they do during the campaign.
• Great graphics.
• Incredibly satisfying to snag yourself some kills because of the more reserved, slower-paced nature of some matches.
• This could possibly be an isolated incident, but I've encountered no accounts of racism, bigotry and other headset garbage. There was one group of mates who were a buncha twats and would also revel in winning, but otherwise the horror stories of xbox live--via Gears 3 in any case--have been hidden from me thus far.
• No perks, boosters, killstreaks or anything of the sort - just pure skill.
• So much to unlock and so many achievements to strive for! Plus the amount of ribbons and medals make for some incentives to player differently - theoretically anyway. Unlocking a character skin by other means than simply levelling up is also highly satisfying. I admittedly played against bots to unlock me the Locust Sniper skin by getting 50 headshots mind you... >_>
• Executing players is risky but worth the added humiliation you're bestowing onto your opponent.

Cons:

• Shotguns, shotguns and more shotguns! The shotgun is the favoured weapon for the more advanced players and its disappointing to see an entire armoury of weapons often discarded in favour of just the one.
• Shotguns are also hard to master.
• No signal identification of when a grenade's been thrown your way. This transpires across the entire game, and while your character will call-out a grenade if it's nearby, it can be easy to miss and a visual identifier would make for a more reliable way of letting you know there's a frag that's just been hurled under your arse.

Overall I find Gears 3's multiplayer to be highly addictive and simply a lot of fun to play. Even when I'm doing pretty badly I'll stick around because I love the feel of the controls so much. The shotgun complaint is a significant complaint, though. I'm very excited to join in once Judgment is released as well, so I can actually feel like I'll be on some even ground fighting against the flock of newbies that'll invariably join in.

Anywhoo if anyone ever wants to play, my gamertag is DayLiam. I'm much better at the coop stuff, naturally, but if you don't mind potentially dragging along dead weight, then I'm all for playing some competitive as well! Unfortunately that month only has about... I dunno, maybe a week or two left? I might buy me a subscription card sometime down the line in any case.

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Uncharted Trois!

Unlike Gears, I actually have a lot of experience with the Uncharted games. I bought Uncharted 2 day-one and I think after my first completion (out of I think six) of the campaign, I would drift in and out of the multiplayer. During this time I had a posse I formed up through Gamespot. A lot of good times, greats even and it felt nice to be apart of a community. There was only around 5-6 of us mind you. One such, who's a user on here actually but doesn't use her profile anymore, I played a lot with. We even beat through the cooperative adventure levels with just the two of us! I put in a lot of time with my little brother as well; we had loads of fun just messing around with the cinema mode, looking for goofy pictures to take.

In any case, I played a lot of Uncharted 2. I first started off with the open beta and played till the end; then the full game arrived and, like I said, I played a lot. I was there to celebrate through the Thanksgiving holiday bonus and the Christmas bonus, and overall I accumulated something like, I dunno, maybe 100 or so hours in total. Which probably doesn't sound a lot to, say, the people who have put in literally 1000+ hours in TF2, but for me who never sticks with an online multiplayer component for that long, it definitely felt like I planted my feet in deep.

I especially liked the Ranked mode, as it gave you a separate rank besides your own overall rank that designated your skill; from 1 to 50, which would rise and lower depending on how well you done in matches. I was able to stay stuck to 50, if the high 40s, for a good long while during my stay. I eventually moved on, about the time the Siege DLC was released. I wasn't playing with my old Gamespot crew during this point either, so I fell out after playing on my own for so long. Eventually once i got a stronger foothold in the GB community, I tagged with a lot of other like-minded folk and from there we had our own GB Uncharted gaming nights, helmed by X19. It was a lot of fun, though the long hiatus meant that I was rusty. The fact that a lot of the more casual goers left also resulted in me often facing against the people who were significantly more dedicated to getting good at the game than I was. I was still alright, but I was no longer cleaning house like during the first few months.

Eventually Uncharted 3 arrived. Well, first there was the two beta's, and the first one during summer I was an absolute King at because of my overall experience with the game. Once the full Uncharted 3 came along, I actually headed into the multiplayer after only playing through about halfway of the campaign. That was primarily because, well, I'm really not a fan of Uncharted 3's campaign. But to a lesser extent I was also super excited to play more Uncharted 3 multiplayer!

In any case Uncharted 3's multiplayer is... different from Uncharted 2's in some areas, but it's largely the same sort of deal just expanded upon. Sprinting, automatic ammo pickup, a more diverse set of Boosters (perks) and now introducing Kickbacks (killstreaks... sorta), weapon MODS, cosmetic customisation options and so forth.

Once again I rallied alongside the small squadron of like-minded GB'rs and we regularly played ourselves some Uncharted 3! I've had a lot of fun with Uncharted across the hours, which according to my time stamp is a significantly lower number than the time spent in Uncharted 2. The competitive side of things leaves me only around 24 hours in fact, less than a quarter of my time spent in Uncharted 2. That would probably be because while Uncharted 3 made a myriad of improvements to Uncharted 2, there was still a lot of inherent jankiness to suffer through and, after playing through some very recently (which inspired this very blog), still persists.

For starters, unlike Gears 3, playing Uncharted 3's multiplayer as a cover-based shooter rarely works. In fact the multiplayer mostly adheres to the exact opposite approach, with most players--admittedly including myself--rolling along much like it's a run n gunner. The added sprint option allows you to better travel throughout the arenas, and the added verticality and overall openness of the maps means that taking cover often doesn't provide you with a lot of actual cover. Because of the relatively large diversity of customisation when put against Gears, it allows a lot more variety in playstyles, as well as for the balance to go completely whacked. For a time, such weapons like the FAL-SS were insanely overpowered against other such ilk, and unlike Gears were everyone is mostly in even ground, a low level player stuck with an AK regardless of experience (after Uncharted 3's prestige equivalent for example) will clearly be at a hefty disadvantage against someone using the Level 50 unlockable Fal weapon with a level 3 fleet-foot booster - which allows players to more hastily move around while aiming.

Many a patch has been released to continuously tweak this and poke at that by the ever gracious Naughty Dog, but other problems still arise. For starters, despite the sort of impression the franchise has generally put forward, Uncharted 3 is a significantly clunkier game than Gears 3. Gears 3's controls are damn near pitch-perfect I tell you, whereas Uncharted 3's, while it may feature quicker animations, is much slipperier and less precise. Many a time would you find yourself stuck against a wall when trying to move about, or accidentally jumping against a wall when you're trying to latch onto the edge. The platforming elements ported over from the single-player is still a great feature and one such style of gameplay that helps Uncharted 2/3's multiplayer stand out amongst the crowd. But it comes at a price as you're forced to put up with some squirrelly controls.

Because of the fast pace of the game and the map design of most levels, what generally tends to happen a lot is while you're currently engaged with one player, another one is usually able to quickly arrive soon after and finish you off should you win. Sure, this is a common strategy for many multiplayer games, but with Gears 3 and the fact that you often always have a shotgun at hand, it often feels like there's more chance for you to survive an ambush by another player. Whereas in Uncharted you can very easily become overwhelmed and no matter how hard you press down that sprint button will have to inevitably find yourself downed.

What is most unfortunate, however, is the lag. Whereas Gears 3 mostly plays like a dream from a net perspective, Uncharted 3 is more so unpredictable. My connection is OK at 20Mbps, but lag is still prominent enough to cause the occasional outrage. Stuff like players taking an inordinate amount of bullets to take down, grenades that will explode almost instantaneously when thrown, dying a second later after escaping a chasing player, melee attacks which sometimes won't register--and in fact close-quarters combat is a total mess regardless of lag to be perfectly honest. It goes without saying that lag is prominent across most facets of online games, but in Uncharted 3 there is a significant number of Mexican players--who are so proud of their native lands they all often like to label their 4-character clan tags as MEX--who will have a completely empty connection bar. It can't be helped, but such prominence still stands out and can make playing the game a complete piss take at times.

Now I notice I've been rather negative overall concerning Uncharted here, which I don't mean to be! In fact, ironically enough, I think Uncharted 3's multiplayer is probably easier to get into than Gears 3. Because of the often chaotic nature of matches, they can sometimes go one way or another, and levelling up via the coop stages can help if a player should simply want to hit the level where they're more comfortable with their arsenal and array of boosters & kickbacks You're still getting to play and listen to the humorous quips of the ever likeable Uncharted cast as well. For myself, I've long primarily stuck to playing as Sully on the heroes side--orange shirt Sully at that--rockin' a fedora. Though on the side of the villains I'm kinda all over the place

The gunplay is still pretty solid and while the variety of boosters and kickbacks sometimes completely shit all over anything to do with balance, they can also make for a more colourful series of matches. Though unfortunately, we're at the point where quick-boom and RPG!! are the most common kickbacks to be equipped. Trying to occasionaly run away from a horde of insta-kill spiders can also be a right bastard, but it still makes for a hilarious scenario as you're just bailing right outta there screaming for your life.

And this Uncharted segment is long enough that even I can now sympathise with anyone who wants to give it a miss... So, TL;DR DIGESTIVE ENGAGE:

Pros:

• Fun cast of characters to play as.
• Verticality adds an interesting dynamic to the competitive gameplay.
• Shooting is still fun enough to lead into addicting all-day multiplayer marathons.
• Great amount of customisation.
• Dedicated support by Naughty Dog.
• Comparatively easy to get into against Gears of War 3.
• Taunts! And many many more with this new series of patches and free DLC! Want to have Katherine Marlowe perform a 'Hillbilly Shuffle' over your latest kill? Uncharted 3 got what yo need!

Cons:

• Slippery movement and platforming that isn't as precise as you'd probably like. Remember those missed jumps you may have unfortunately succumbed to during the campaign? Annoying, right? Well imagine falling prey to one of those in a multiplayer match.
• The aforementioned customisation also invariably leads to unbalance. There's a Hardcore mode that cuts off all of the peripheral bonuses, but it's only for TDM.
• The open, labyrinthine nature of the maps leads to a lot of scattered chaos.
• Laggy players are a noticeable issue that has plagued my playtime for a long while now, which is more so a nuisance after playing a series of stable matches for Gears 3.
• Multiplayer graphics are somewhat sub-par when compared to the campaign. The maps look fine, but some of the character models--especially the faces--are poorly textured; Charlie Cutter's MP character looks like a cocaine fiend.
• Spawn locations can be a little busted; you also don't receive any temporary immunity when you return into the match like in Gears, so occurrences of spawning on top of a live grenade or to be blindfired + melee hit as soon as you run around the corner can happen.

I hadn't played Uncharted 3 in a fair few months, but the latest patch--which is one of the largest I've seen for a console game--egged me on as an excuse to head back in. Things still mostly play the same, and it's been so long that it's a struggle to actually pin-point the differences. My heart & soul, the G-Mal, has a heavier bit 'o recoil, but otherwise I eased in and experienced all of what I loved and loathed about Uncharted 3's multiplayer. I'm more than likely still going to head back in every so often as well, so once again feel free to add me!

PSN-ID be Yummylee.

Despite the title, I'm not here to hand out a verdict as to which is insurmountably better. They both of course have their own set of pluses and negatives. Gears 3 is a much more methodical sort of game, where your decisions within the battlefield and supporting your team stands for more than simply being a good shot--though that doesn't hurt, either How you choose to manoeuvre throughout the environment is a notably key factor as well, and while the same can be said for Uncharted 3, Uncharted 3 is tougher in setting up an escape plan. On the other hand, Uncharted 3 is more ripe for simply screwing about and having some immature fun.

Because Gears of War 3 is a more prominent ringer within the tournament scene, there's less chance you'll encounter equally minded players who play for the goofiness of the game and instead will be pulverised by people who want nothing more than to win. However, Gears of War 3 is possibly a more gratifying game to excel at in spite of this; because of its strict style of play, it feels invigorating to rank yourself high up on the match leaderboard. I'm currently still enjoying them both, but once Judgment arrives, I think that may act as the deciding factor as to whether I will move onto the Gears style of gameplay for my TPS competitive urges, or whether I'll stay stuck in with Uncharted 3 as I carry on enjoying kicking players off ledges and sneaking up behind fellows and snapping their necks - ninja styaaal.

Why! Why must the times be so cruel! And I'm not referring to the stupid silly delay the MGS HD collection underwent (which was still silly stupid), but for how my own tolerance for video games must move forward so fast. To put it bluntly, I don't think MGS3 has aged well at all. And it's killing me inside with a serrated blade... dipped in poison, while on fire, and I'm being force-fed laxatives giving me violent diarrhoea in the process.

MGS3 was one of my favourite games on the ps2; hell, it may well be one of my favourite games of all time. But after playing through it very recently, it comes across as unapologetically clunky and cumbersome. The shooting controls are hard to adapt to after so many improvements made across the years, not being able to move while crouching is pure insanity, and the camo and how it'll quickly dart down to 30% just as your elbow touches a speck of a different texture causing you to be spotted from a guy 50 miles away is ever so frustrating. To be fair, I remember that it all gets much easier to bear once I unlocked the ''Snake'' camo for beating down The Boss' stamina gauge, but I'm still going to have to complete the game to get to that point.

What also strikes me as dated, even by the game's original release standards, was how you couldn't just drop grenades when you're trying to escape from American accented Russians. So you're spotted right, and you'd imagine you could just drop a stun grenade on your current position and POOF like Batman or some shit. But instead, Snake has to pause on the spot and then do a small underarm throw; even when you're in the midst of running away, he'll stop on the fucking spot just to then girly-throw a grenade--seriously, Snake has a really poor throwing arm even when you hold the button in! What's crazy is that you could totally utilise such a tactic in the very first MGS! I can distinctly remember doing as such when I'm running up/down the towers before the Hind-D boss battle, with all of the gun-cameras scattered about.

The way the controls reverse or go completely sideways when you're up against a wall and attempt to move the camera around, forcing you to either accidentally get off the wall, or begin to shimmy, or even fall off if you're shimmying against a cliff-side or something is another bullet-point to add to my ever increasing rage! The way you're not able to maybe look down off the edge of a small hilltop or hill that you're crawling across, or drop a grenade on the guy who may be right below you is an another example.

And it's not like the game is too difficult or anything; it's just that we all want to play stealth games right. We don't want to get spotted and then be forced into some clunky shooting scenarios, especially since when you're in alert status, your camo stands for shit all. I mean even if you're out of sight but the alert phase is going, they will still know exactly where you are regardless of whether your camo index hits -9000% or 95%.

Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with me being impatient or lacking the focus to meticulously crawl everywhere. But there's a lot of overt clunkiness across every facet of the stealth gameplay that it often comes down to you being spotted because of the game's own clumsy mechanics. It's commendable that the game has such complex potential within, and MGS3 definitely made a heap of impressive improvements to its own formula, but the gameplay elements aren't able to match the complexity and give you the right amount of efficiency to tackle the stealth scenarios. There are far too many barriers created through the screwy gameplay that are then placed over the barriers implemented through MGS3's own design choices - it all starts to feel almost overwhelming.

Back when I first played it, I'm sure I went through some similar frustrations, but washed 'em off for the sake of everything else. The hunting mechanic is still really well done and unique, listening to 40 minute codec calls are still almost therapeutic, the writing is solid, the voice-acting is still a good blend of self-seriousness and goofiness, the cutscenes are still grand to watch (though the lip syncing is really poor), the boss battles are still inventive and fun, the soundtrack is still the goddamn MGS3 soundtrack, the ingenuity like the Sorrow & End (among many other things) boss battles are still ingenious (or I'd like to think... haven't actually gotten that far yet), and the story is easily my favourite of the lot. A lot of those specific aspects fortunately still manage to impress.

However, even if the increased dependence on age-old gadgets that have limited battery power, silencers that deteriorate, and your radar being replaced with your own cunning and self-awareness was a massive leap over MGS2's comparatively simple mechanics, those simple mechanics still make for a more satisfying stealth game because I felt like I was on even ground; I didn't often have to fight against a myriad of gameplay goofs alongside the overall increased complexity and resulting difficulty. For MGS3 I feel like I spend half of my playtime downing fake-death pills so I can just restart the whole area - all because of one small mistake leading into complete and utter chaos

Of course this sort of reaction is nothing new; nostalgia is both a loving and deceptive mistress, who likes to keep your memories warm and fuzzy, long hidden from reality. The same reality you are also ill-prepared to face. But.... it's Metal Gear Solid 3! How can this happen to me!? Why must this happen to me?! Is it because I touch myself at night?!?

Honestly, I think MGS3 was ahead of its time. It had the innovation, it had the ideas, it executed on some of those ideas, but didn't have the current tech nor the current mindset that would have really helped it flourish. MGS4 made innumerable incremental improvements, but it still can't top MGS3 as a whole for me for many, many reasons that I can't entirely be bothered getting into. But if MGS3 was to be re-released with MGS4's controls and added improvements, then it could very well match the memories I used to have of MGS3 prior to this horrifying realisation.

It's basically just like The Boss herself said and how everything is dictated by the times. /pseudo-intellectualism

Will I ever even return to MGS3 again? I'm at least still banking on the idea that once I get the 'Snake' camo, everything's going to be alright better, since it consistently stays within around 80% regardless of the terrain. But even still, I'm currently just not having a lot of fun. And again, it's an awful lot of me taking my sweet time tranquillising everyone, only to then have my master plan foiled because peeking your camouflaged head from behind a piece of cover will apparently always destroy any and all attempts to blend in - full stop. I mean seriously, no exceptions? It has to always drain down to a staggering 0%?

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PS: The original Devil May Cry sucks to play now, too. But DMC3 is still as fun and addictive as ever, so it's all good in that department.

I don't usually do this (review films or post user-reviews in a blog), but after re-watching the sublime 2005 monster schlock that is Feast... I dunno, I just had the urge to gush out the enjoyment I had. And considering the state screened.com has unfortunately found itself in (though I've still posted it on there anywhoo), I decided to post it on here. As a blog, rather than sticking them on my status par the course. Which already feels somewhat egotistical and like I've now opened up the flood gates for all sorts of rampant criticism and belittlement and the tears and--OK, well first things first. I'm not a very good writer, and I'm not exactly aspiring to be one either. I just enjoy writing up user-reviews as a way to better contain my thoughts, and should people read or even recommend (which I have an astonishing amount for my GB user-reviews for some reason), then all the better!

Feast is a monster movie; it's a ''one crazy night'' movie; it's also nothing that exactly pushes forward either of the sub-genres. But at the same time, Feast manages to turn certain conventions on its head and will keep even genre die-hards guessing as to who and when certain characters will have their entrails ripped out. It's almost like a comical documentary about our conceptions of the 'horror movie cast', but one that is made well within the bounds of what it is commentating towards.

Directed by John Gulager, who has continued on with two sequels--which I haven't seen yet, but considering the highs Feast manages to reach, it can only go down?--Feast pays homage to many of the typical cliches and tropes found within this sort of movie, and... doesn't exactly parody said tropes and cliches, but rather twists them around in a humorous fashion. This is a movie that is self-aware--featuring many winks and even a few nods here and there--yet conventional, and is a completely competent, no great, ''one crazy night staving off a horde of monsters'', movie.

The story begins paying host to the cast of archetypes (I mean that quite literally; all characters are under a specific title such as ''Hero'' and ''Beer Guy''), creatively pausing the scene to give a brief run-down of a character, complete with a fun-fact and an estimate on how long they'll live. But the estimates are... pretty unreliable, to say the least. The best part of the movie is forever knowing that anyone can die (well, not literally, but you get the drift). And die people do, in appropriately gory fashion.

The plot is wafer-thin, but it's nonetheless an awesome premise and one that is executed well here. Basically set around a small tavern in the middle of nowhere, monsters seemingly appear from wherever and begin an assault on the tavern, all just so they can fill up their tummy tum tum. And that's quite literally it; windows will be boarded, barricades will be built, and cleavage will be on display. What works is the details; alongside the brilliant introduction, the writing is rather witty across its 86 minute running down, and the direction does a fine job in eliciting both laughs, scares, tension, and even sorrow when the movie occasionally calls for it. Gulager is perhaps a little too liberal with his use of the shaky cam during the most hectic scenarios, but that doesn't get in the way of pouring the gore to the top of the glass. One moment where a poor soul loses an eye definitely stood out.

The acting is about on-par with the writing, and while this isn't exactly the kind of movie that demands much, the sharp writing goes hand in hand with a largely competent set of players, including Judah Friedlander as Judah Friedlander, Henry Rollins as a pretty funny motivational speaker called ''Coach'', and Balthazar (seriously) Getty as the poster-boy redneck, ''Bozo''.

The overall pacing is pretty tight, never letting the movie linger for too long without moving onto something blood-filled or crazy. And even when it does linger, the characters and the dialogue are so enjoyable that I was perfectly fine with actually getting to know these people. The 'creatures' themselves are largely generic, however, but the kills they'll commit and those teeth do enough to let you know they're to be feared. Though again, Feast perhaps falls back onto the shaky cam (while clearly in play because of the budget) just a wee too much. Things don't become outright disorientating like the worst offenders, but other tricks such as clever camera angles, shadows or something could of been put to better use to help keep the monsters fearsome while still avoiding to put them in any full body shots. Regardless, Feast's sole environment manages to look pretty good, most notably when the Tavern's power runs out and the backup generator dips the place into an orange hue. The moment when the sun begins to beam through the windows was well done too, giving the impression that God himself was welcoming the survivors into his embrace right out of the Hell they endured. Cliched as the metaphorical Hell they were stuck in, but damn did it still feel gratifying, like I myself could almost feel the radiating warmth.

Feast is a simple movie within a relatively simple sub-genre, but what makes it impressive is for how different it still felt as I was watching it. It's without a doubt one of the better monster movies you can find coming from this century, and despite the budget, Gulager manages to display a surprising degree of quality against the still strong quantity of blood and guts. Tasty.

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Also I recently watched 'Seconds Apart' too (gone on a blu-ray binge, buying all kinds of horror movies), which is rubbish. Oh, and 'A Tale of Two Sisters', which was... pretty good, but I'm not in the camp who appear to adore that movie. There was only one truly scary scene, and it fell back on the asian-horror mother of all cliches with a woman whose face is completely covered up by her long, dark hair. The psychological part was great at least; I loved the performance of the step-mother too, especially the dinner scene when she's recalling a 'funny' story. I dunno what it is, though... I feel like it may be one of those movies that I'll appreciate more once I re-watch it down the line.

I was relatively optimistic towards Amalur for a while after hearing about how it's meant to be an Elder Scrolls-ish RPG with ''God of War'' like combat. The trailers enticed me all the more, and even the demo left me feeling cautiously positive. But then... I dunno... after around 5 hours of playing (on Friday... mostly been playing Gears 3 instead) my stomach gradually began to sink as I couldn't help but notice how damn dated this thing is across its entirety.

I mean, I understand they weren't aiming to actually make a new Elder Scrolls, but the world is so terribly static (the taverns in particular are so depressingly inanimate and empty), the character models are so poorly detailed--often paired with equally terrifying and hilarious facial and mid-dialogue animations--you'll often encounter people who look just like your own character (thanks in no small part to the relative simplicity of the character creator and the shallow selection of races--basically two human races and 2 elves), and the ''world'' from what I can tell is basically made up of a lot of pretty corridors with towns in the middle. And some instanced off dungeons.

And your character.. now I don't hold any grudges against silent protagonists (even if they are becoming tougher to tolerate as the years go by), but it's the fact that they don't allow you to birth some sort of personality via the dialogue options you can choose your character to say that I vehemently dislike, which leaves the protagonist as the emptiest of slates with but an occasional blink just to prove that your character is in fact alive during conversations. At least Link actually animates, and games like Dragon Age: Origins had some brilliantly clever/humorous dialogue options for you choose from to build an identity. Your own race doesn't even factor into things either far as I can tell; having some bartender telling me not to worry about the upstairs healer because she's some... dark elf, or whatever stupid name they needlessly conjured up to make their world appear more unique, when I myself am also a dark elf just ripped me out of believing my character was actually somebody rather than just a player avatar.

Oh, and the combat isn't even all that good! It can be pretty satisfying to swing my massive flaming hammer around, but the combat is nowhere near as deep as I was hoping. You can't even bloody jump! Playing on hard mode, the game is also pretty frustrating... because of how easy it is! For a lot of battles, all I quite literally do is smash the square button over and over. Sure, there'll be sub boss battles that provide some opposition, but otherwise against all the random mobs, and even some of the humanoid boss battles who'll flinch after every attack, I can just rest and mash the square button and I'm sorted. Then there's nagging issues like why can I only do special stealth kills with daggers? Or why must my bow take up my second weapon spot when I'm naturally going to want to have a bow equipped anyway. If they really wanted to allow a little more combat puzzazz, they should of given you a third spot solely for a ranged weapon; that way you could have two melee weapon spots to mix up your attacks and not have to sacrifice a ranged weapon--or be forced to continually change your secondary weapon. Oh, and the way your shield just appears is silly, and it specifically irks me because I often like to see my character with his shield equipped too. For a game that's all about making your character look awesome, it's surprising that they passed over the tick box about allowing my character to strut around with a sword 'n' shield like a baws.

The cartoony style I do like, though, as I do the Destiny system - which is probably the only shining beacon of creativity the game showcases. And to be fair, I've only played a small amount thus far... but after looking over the ''moves'' list, there's really not that much else to look forward to as regards to expanding my attack patterns. If the game stays as easy as it has thus far as well then I won't even need to use any ''tactics'' besides ole faithful.

The world is just so bloody boring and it leaves me with little desire to learn more; and these days it also takes just a little more than some ''loot lust'' to push me further--especially when the game's this easy, when a green weapon is already all I need to do the job swiftly.. Frankly, the entire game feels like its sole purpose was to act as the precursor for the MMO; it'll set up the lore and the races and what have you, and then they begin with the real game. I mean seriously, how can a game with this many huge names tagged to the development evidently suffer from what looks have been a fairly low budget?

Maybe the game does hold some surprises down the line, though; maybe it'll eventually rise to be a game I'll at least finish. But as of now, it's left me with a soul crushingly bad first-impression and the mere thought of heading back in doesn't exactly have me tearing with excitement. It's overall shallow, derivative to a frightening degree and something I really wish I hadn't put £38 towards. On the bright side, Gears 3 is pretty fucking awesome. Really dislike the submarine and end boss segments, though. But otherwise, its 5 stars is well deserved.

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TL;DR

God Dammit

Just completed Brotherhood and OMGWTFBBQ ect ect. An overall fantastic game and one I wish I played through sooner; it would have no doubt ranked on my top 10 for that year had I played through it then and shared my enthusiasm as much as I do now for the game.

It's weird because I really liked my time with Brotherhood's campaign, a fair amount more than with AC2, and I never really understood why. I've always been a distant appreciator for the AC series, always acknowledging that it's a solid series, but never having any strong devotion towards it. I despised the first AC, but even then I could see its merit. Even with Brotherhood, I still find the platforming to be really finicky sometimes and the stealth is pretty undeveloped. I mean the guards I noticed are complete, fucking nimrods with what appears to be zero peripheral vision. But they kinda have to be, given how little in the way of abilities you have to stealth around as you do. Also chase missions suck, as do missions where you have to tail people.

Even still, Brotherhood, for whatever reason, clicked a lot more so with me than its predecessor; where as for AC2, I kinda just wanted the campaign to end as it was closing, for Brotherhood I just wish there was more. The addition of the Brotherhood is a great new feature, if a shallow one, but that's still not quite what I'd say won me over completely. Maybe now I've just grown a new found fondess for AC just because... AC is the kind of series I'm apparently in the mood for right now, I guess.

But yeah, the reason for the title... well, it speaks for itself. Brotherhood is a brilliant single player game with a simply staggering amount of stuff to do (the Leonardo death-machine missions were probably my favourite parts of the game - that along with the Romulus parkour missions), but once you receive the apple, the final few missions as Ezio seemingly blend together kinda haphazardly. Things move at a surprising haste, which goes against the otherwise methodical pace of knocking down Cesare one peg at a time. I mean when the game just quickly shifts to the middle of some climatic battle right out of nowhere, it definitely felt like the game just wanted to get Ezio out of the way so it could move on to the Desmond and all the mind-fuckery. An otherwise low point on a brilliantly paced story.

Which said mindfuckery, from my assumptions, is meant to lead you to believing that Desmond is the kinda/sorta reincarnation of ''Adam''? Or to essentially take up the role of ''Adam'' anywhoo. And this Juno wants him to reawaken this 6th sense and along with his ''Eve'', they are to start a new race of humans where we all have this 6th sense? Naturally I'm a little late for all the speculation revolving around Brotherhood's ending, what with the sequel here and all, but I wanted to put that there anywhoo so people can throw my speculation back into my face and rebutal with cold hard FACTS! Also please don't, since I actually now really want to play through Revelations, even though I'm aware that the story is meant to be one of the most disappointing aspects because it doesn't really push the overall arc very forward.

Also on the topic of AC, is Ezio possibly one of the most developed characters amongst video-gaming?! I mean holy shit, you don't half spend a deal of time with the man. Playing through those flashback missions in particular opened my eyes to how much Ezio has grown across the years (Roger Craig Smith reverting to his lighter voice for the younger, more brash Ezio was a great touch to illustrate that fact), and how we have actually been there for the majority of it. We were there for when he was born! And now with Revelations, we're going to be at his side for what I assume will be his final moments, if not the moments leading up to it. Watching him mature to the cool and calculated badass that he be is an arc you don't see that many of across a franchise - or at least with this much breadth.

Anywhoo I've rambled on about AC so much now that I might as well turn this into a blog... yeah, I think I'll do that.