Apart from the fact that EA blatantly ripped off the art style of Team Fortress 2 I was looking forward to playing Battlefield Heroes, not least because it is free. They have slapped together FPS game mechanics with an RPG style consistent character and presented the whole thing as a first/third person shooter. The two forces are obviously Brits vs Nazis but the game is like a watered down version of a typical shooter, that is if you can get into it!
I’m sure EA were delighted with their browser based install system which is obviously intended to make things easy but I’m not a big fan. Poor layout and a refresh problem which you aren’t warned about meant my installation took a while to complete and I don’t really like having to sign into the browser every time I want to play. It is like having an individual Steam for one game and it runs Punkbuster as well, which after install wants to start itself up whether you are playing or not.
With the game installed and my character created I tried to start the game. The tutorial worked fine and I was ready for my first battle but everytime it connected the server would dump me and an error message would pop up. The forum revealed that the game has been plagued by errors and the dev team have been slow to post solutions. Considering it was delayed it is disapointing that they’ve released a buggy game and while I’d buy the whole “What can you expect for a free game?” if it was made by an indie I am less sympathetic when it comes to someone with pockets as deep as EA.
Once in the game is underwhelming. It should be called Battlefield Lite. It may appeal to casual gamers or non FPS players but then again why would non FPS players want to play an FPS? Anyway it’s not too bad, there is some fun to be had and the microtransactions are easy to ignore but I can’t see them making much money from it. It will be very interesting to see how well they decide it has done, especially since it is part of their Play 4 Free range.
So Microsoft have announced they are cutting the price of the Xbox 360 Elite by $100 which will make it $299. The same price as the new PS3. Both machines are 120 GB but I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would buy a 360 over a PS3. The PS3 is a far better console with support for Blu-ray and web browsing. The fact that Sony take a loss on each console sold shows you what a good deal it is for the consumer. Meanwhile Microsoft cut out the free HDMI cable they were bundling with the Xbox 360 Elite package and they still claim to be making a profit on the hardware.
I found their statement about how they had planned this price drop all along quite funny. It just happened to be something they were going to announce anyway even although they didn’t announce it at GamesCom, it has nothing to do with their major competitor dropping the price of their console, honest. Yes very convincing. Microsoft also plan to phase out the Xbox 360 Pro which is dropping in price to $249.
If you missed the indie developed awesomeness that was Mount & Blade then I pity you. A realistic melee combat system allowed you to engage in medieval battle on horseback with a lance, sword fight, smash skulls in with a mace, slash and hack with an axe and throw spears. There were bows and crossbows and castle sieges and while the whole package was a little rough around the edges it was great fun and completely unique. I got addicted for a few weeks.
Now there is a new version, Mount & Blade Warband and they have given the whole game a graphical makeover but more importantly they have added a multiplayer option so I’ll be a smashing a skull near you very soon. Check out the video.
Sony made some interesting announcements at the GamesCom 2009 Expo. First up was the predictable news that they would be releasing a slim version of the PS3 on the 1st of September. It is 33% smaller, 36% lighter and 10% less loveable. I’m just saying that because I already have a fat PS3 and I love it anyway. None of this shallow obsessive dieting for my PS3.
They are also doing a firmware update for PS3s big and small. It will let you watch BBC iPlayer through your PS3 which is awesome and there are a few other bits and pieces as well. You’ll now be able to browse the PS3 via any Bravia remote so yet another reason why I need to buy a new Sony Bravia TV, the wife will surely cave this time.
There is also the PSP Go, the dinky version of the PSP which slides open. It will be getting a download service where you can buy mini-games, by which they mean under 100 MB puzzle games and casual titles. It has a way to go to catch the Nintendo DS but this still looks like a smart move from Sony.
I used to play first person shooters for hours daily. Working at a games developer it is pretty common to play games at lunch time and sometimes even stay after work to have a big FPS session. Counter Strike, Unreal Tournament, Vietcong, Call of Duty, Medal of Honour, Wolfenstein, Halo, Team Fortress 2, Mafia, Doom, No One Lives Forever and our own game The Ship. There have been some great multiplayer FPS games over the years and nothing beats sitting in the same room as your team so you can actually communicate. The rivalry was fierce and epic gaming sessions would really spark the adrenaline.
I’m a really bad loser when it comes to games. Verbal abuse at work was always part of the fun though, or at least it was for me, but there came a time when the world of FPS combat lost its appeal and I stopped playing FPS games altogether. It wasn’t a deliberate decision there were just other games that I wanted to play. It wasn’t like I had fallen out with FPS’s or anything. In fact just recently I had to play one for a preview (Section 8) and I thought to myself why has it been so long? Welcome old friend perhaps I’ll play you regularly again. It soon became apparent why I gave them up.
Within five minutes of joining I had been killed three times before moving from my spawn point, stabbed in the face by a leaping hardcore nutter twice and been called a fucking useless noob by someone on my own team. Within half an hour I had the old aiming skills back and the adrenaline was flowing. Within an hour I had repeatedly raped the knife man and helped my team to back to back to victories. I would not be able to stop until I had fought my way to the top of the scoreboard and once I did after an hour and half I had to stubbornly resist the urge to type who’s the noob now you fucker! The truth is FPS games don’t bring out the best in me.
I shut it down before the next map could load up and suck me in and turned to see the horrified face of my wife holding my baby son. Having been subjected to a loud string of expletive laden screaming and completely ignored she was not best pleased. My son didn’t look bothered.
Just been playing a Nintendo DS game called Hysteria Hospital: Emergency Ward which I’m reviewing and it was really pretty poor. Like a Flash browser game except they want $20 for it. It’s something I’ve noticed in general about Nintendo lately, they’ve thrown the whole idea of quality control out of the window. This game had the Nintendo Seal of Quality on the back of the box, just like all the shovelware Wii games they churn out. Didn’t that used to mean something? Actually no, they always churned out more than their fair share of total crap you just tend to forget the bad ones.
I’ve never been much of a fan of Nintendo and in the past they had games like Mario Kart which is undeniably awesome but now I could count the number of decent Wii and DS games on one hand and most of them are repackaged classics or multi format releases. The top selling game on the DS is Nintendogs and on the Wii it’s Wii Sports. Not exactly inspiring stuff. Anyway not sure what my point is just some aimless Nintendo moaning
I’m not sure when or where it happened but there was obviously a law passed at some point which states that any PC intended to be a top of the line gaming machine must come in a stupid case. Apparently gamers are desperate to see the inner workings of their machine preferably with a blue glow applied. There’s nothing better while blasting aliens and building empires than to glance down and see neon blue shining through a zig zag pattern on the side of your PC. Thank god, zeus, odin, allah, or whoever my motherboard is still there!
If it doesn’t have the cutaway with the mad lighting then it has to have a moving or sliding face plate. Something completely pointless and impractical which actually detracts from the precious gaming time you have because you have to wait for this mechanical wonder to unfold everytime you want to put a disk in the machine. Some of them are now disguising the shape altogether. I may be a PC but I don’t have to be a box shape, I can be all angular like dazzle camouflage. Behold my glowing weird awesomeness.
I have to wonder do the people who buy these machines just give up gaming altogether and sit round the PC case in the dark? The only thing worse than the stupid cut away effect is getting a custom paint job on your PC. It’s not a car ffs, who are you trying to impress with that flaming skull? Do you cart it around on a skateboard so people can see? Maybe I’m missing the point but I don’t really need to be sitting in the bridge of the Starship Enterprise to get immersed in a game. I’m more interested in what’s inside the machine. A big black brick is fine with me as long as it is quiet and really, really fast.
Just back from a two week holiday in France and we drove. Yes all the way from Edinburgh through the Channel Tunnel and down to a tiny place near Josselin in Brittany. Couldn’t fly for various reasons so we were stuck with the two day road trip and so I dusted off my handhelds, charged them up and finally played some DS and PSP games.
It was only as I went to pick them up and coughed from the thick layer of dust that I realised I hadn’t actually touched either of them for quite a while. The DS has certainly seen more action than the PSP and I’m not ashamed to admit to some Mariokart toilet sessions. I find a Grand Prix comp is about the length of a good dump but you probably don’t need to know that.
Anyway I remembered that the PSP is actually really nice, the screen is awesome and I played GTA Liberty City stories and God of War. The shiny problem definitely cost me a few lives as the sun dazzled me momentarily and caused me to drive into the sea or zig when I should have zagged. Still it was fun and that wee thumb controller thingy is awesome.
Everyone else wanted to play the DS. Mariokart, The Curious Professor Puzzleface (you know the one), Brain Training, Sight Training, maybe I should bring out Toilet Training No doubting the mass appeal of Nintendo then.
Anyway now I’ve returned the handhelds have gone back to their shelves and despite my resolution to play them a bit more there is a PC and a PS3 and a Wii to contend with. I know the next time I reach for them they’ll probably have grown a new layer of dust. When I had a commute I played them daily but for some reason the whole portability factor means in my head that they should only be used in places where you can’t be playing a better game on a better system.
So how much do you use your handhelds? When and where do you use them? Do you think it’s morally wrong to use them on the toilet? Answers on a postcard please….or post them in comments.
Is the Wii console really a good thing? I’ve been reviewing lots of Wii games recently and despite all the blabbing about the funky peripherals and potentially interesting ways to use them the majority of games for the Wii are seriously sub-standard and completely fail to use the Wii remote in any interesting way.
The Nintendo crusade to get everyone playing the Wii has rendered it hopelessly mainstream and the result is an awful lot of mediocre or flat out rubbish titles. Then you get titles like EA Sports Active which isn’t even a game. It’s a personal fitness trainer and, like Wii Fit, it is undeniably a good idea if you want to draw in an audience traditionally uninterested in gaming.
The contrast between gamers who tend to flog their Wii’s off after a few months when the novelty wears off and non-gamers who can’t seem to get enough Wii action is striking. The thing is that mainstream market is much bigger than the niche hardcore gaming market that Sony and Microsoft are scrapping over. Nintendo have cleverly managed to release the technically least impressive device with the largest profit margin for hardware and a novelty controller and they’ve captured the mainstream market.
There are still reasons for gamers to own a Wii but you have to choose carefully. Novelty titles and retro games are the best titles on offer, recently I enjoyed Let’s Tap and Punch-Out!!
There is no getting away from the fact that Nintendo have allowed an awful lot of rubbish to be released and personally I find it dispiriting and worrying for the industry that a lot of terrible titles on the Wii sell more than awesome titles on other platforms simply because the audience is larger and less discerning.
The news from E3 that Rockstar North are developing a new game called Agent will be cause for excitement amongst GTA fans. The game is set to be a PS3 exclusive and they certainly need a few decent exclusives to drive console sales, especially since the GTA franchise is now cross platform.
The team at Rockstar North are the real talent behind GTA IV so Agent could well be an excellent game. It casts you in the role of a secret agent during the Cold War and promises to be a paranoid journey into espionage and political assassination. No doubt it will have a good dose of humour too. The official Agent website is up but you won’t find any details yet.
Apart from the fact that EA blatantly ripped off the art style of Team Fortress 2 I was looking forward to playing Battlefield Heroes, not least because it is free. They have slapped together FPS game mechanics with an RPG style consistent character and presented the whole thing as a first/third person shooter. The two forces are obviously Brits vs Nazis but the game is like a watered down version of a typical shooter, that is if you can get into it!
So Microsoft have announced they are cutting the price of the Xbox 360 Elite by $100 which will make it $299. The same price as the new PS3. Both machines are 120 GB but I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would buy a 360 over a PS3. The PS3 is a far better console with support for Blu-ray and web browsing. The fact that Sony take a loss on each console sold shows you what a good deal it is for the consumer. Meanwhile Microsoft cut out the free HDMI cable they were bundling with the Xbox 360 Elite package and they still claim to be making a profit on the hardware.
Sony made some interesting announcements at the GamesCom 2009 Expo. First up was the predictable news that they would be releasing a slim version of the PS3 on the 1st of September. It is 33% smaller, 36% lighter and 10% less loveable. I’m just saying that because I already have a fat PS3 and I love it anyway. None of this shallow obsessive dieting for my PS3.
There is also the PSP Go, the dinky version of the PSP which slides open. It will be getting a download service where you can buy mini-games, by which they mean under 100 MB puzzle games and casual titles. It has a way to go to catch the Nintendo DS but this still looks like a smart move from Sony.
I used to play first person shooters for hours daily. Working at a games developer it is pretty common to play games at lunch time and sometimes even stay after work to have a big FPS session. Counter Strike, Unreal Tournament, Vietcong, Call of Duty, Medal of Honour, Wolfenstein, Halo, Team Fortress 2, Mafia, Doom, No One Lives Forever and our own game The Ship. There have been some great multiplayer FPS games over the years and nothing beats sitting in the same room as your team so you can actually communicate. The rivalry was fierce and epic gaming sessions would really spark the adrenaline.
Just been playing a Nintendo DS game called 
I’m not sure when or where it happened but there was obviously a law passed at some point which states that any PC intended to be a top of the line gaming machine must come in a stupid case. Apparently gamers are desperate to see the inner workings of their machine preferably with a blue glow applied. There’s nothing better while blasting aliens and building empires than to glance down and see neon blue shining through a zig zag pattern on the side of your PC. Thank god, zeus, odin, allah, or whoever my motherboard is still there!
Just back from a two week holiday in France and we drove. Yes all the way from Edinburgh through the Channel Tunnel and down to a tiny place near Josselin in Brittany. Couldn’t fly for various reasons so we were stuck with the two day road trip and so I dusted off my handhelds, charged them up and finally played some DS and PSP games. 
Is the Wii console really a good thing? I’ve been reviewing lots of Wii games recently and despite all the blabbing about the funky peripherals and potentially interesting ways to use them the majority of games for the Wii are seriously sub-standard and completely fail to use the Wii remote in any interesting way.