September 2008
Star Wars: Force Unleashed Demo Impressionsby Shabbir on Thursday, 11th September 2008
The Star Wars franchise has been full of video games, some good, majority... not so good. When it comes to action games, the notable titles that stand up are Jedi Knight and Jedi Academy. Both games used force powers a fair amount, however Force Unleashed makes it much more easily accessible.
The game plays very much like Jedi Academy and Jedi Knight if my memory serves me right, plenty of action and some puzzles. The demo is really short, so it's hard to tell if it's a true reflection of the overall game. But from the amount in the demo, it's fair to say puzzles are light and easy (can you call them puzzles?) and there's plenty of fun to be had.
Using the force powers, just Force Push, Force Lightning & Force Grip, at will is a lot of fun. In fact, when you play the demo, that's pretty much all you'll done. You'll just look for more ways to interact with the environment and kill your foes, whether it's flinging your opponents off the edge of a platform into some bottomless pit, or smashing away at them with your lightsaber. It's all fun!
The demo weighs in at about 15-20 minutes of gameplay. The graphics are top notch, looked great on my fake-HD (that's what I'm calling my VGA setup now!) display. Very shiny indeed, I guess those droids do a good job at cleaning around empty hallways. Unfortunately the one thing about the demo was that it didn't display enough of the game – it's just one environment. The few teaser shots at the end of the demo is what I really would've liked to see more of.
I guess we'll have to wait and see. It's scheduled for a 22nd September release date here in the UK. I'm 50/50 about picking it up considering I still have other games to play!
Braid and Bionic Commando: Rearmed Impressions (XBox Live Arcade)by Shabbir on Tuesday, 9th September 2008
Two new pretty high profile games were released recently onto XBox Live Arcade: Braid and Bionic Commando: Rearmed. I downloaded the trials of both games and gave them a go.
Braid is a platformer, however it certainly doesn't feel like a normal platformer. The art style is completely different and it uses a mechanic that allows you to go back in time at any point in the game by just pressing X. So if you're running across the landscape, pressing X will show your character moving backwards through time. You can do this at any point in the game and it certain makes for an interesting game play technique.
The art of Briad is different from regular platformers. Usually they are very cartoony and colourful. While Braid is both, the style is just, well, different. It feels a lot more serious and gritty and doesn't have the vibrant feel of say a typical Super Mario game. This particular style means that you'll either like it or dislike it (not quite as far as hating it). Since it runs through the entire game, it could potentially put you off from playing - which is why I'm sticking to just the trial version and nothing more.
Now as for Bionic Commando, I remember playing one of the games back on my classic chunk GameBoy! Boy, I remember that it was definitely a hard game, and there were no saves, which used to annoy the hell out of me. It's now made a return on XBLA completely redone; It has fresh graphics and sound. It plays just like the old game, where you are a soldier with a bionic arm that can extend and grapple onto things.
Therefore, you'll be spending a large amount of time swinging from places, a bit like Spider-Man would! It's a nice side scrolling action platformer to play also, and is enjoyable. The trial is extremely short but will probably made you want to play more since there are all sorts of humorous little jokes here and there, and a nice conclusion.
Call of Duty 4 Finally Finishedby Shabbir on Sunday, 7th September 2008
I finally sat down and completed Call of Duty 4. I've just been putting it off for such a long time since I keep getting preoccupied with other things. Or even when I do feel like playing the occasional video game, I'd end up playing something else. But this time I thought, why not. I made the switch from SD to somewhat HD, so let's give CoD4 a whirl.
And so I did. Turned out that I was half an hour from the end of the game! I've been playing it fairly occasionally in small chunks since I purchased it, so I don't have a disconnected experience of the game. It's a very good first person shooter. Actually, it's a great first person shooter. The changing of environments constantly, the blending of team fights with solo fights, the different elements of game play rather than just shooting and running - all of these add up and are used to a near perfect quantity to really bring together a great game.
No wonder it was nominated for and won so many awards. Give it a try if you haven't already!
XBox 360 VGA Cable & Bully Impressionsby Shabbir on Wednesday, 3rd September 2008
I share a room with my brother and we have a wall mounted high definition TV, which is plugged into a 360, PS3 and PS2. Also on my desk however is a small high definition compatible TV, where I also have my own 360. I prefer playing games at my desk quite often and it's easier for me to do so, that's why I kept the console and TV there. Since I've had my 360, I've been playing it in standard definition. The TV is high definition compatible, which means you can plug a HD input, but it will scale it down to SD (standard definition).
Now I finally found a VGA cable my brother used to use with his XBox 360 before we got the wall mounted HDTV. I thought that I might as well give it a go and see how it looks. To my surprise, it looked amazing! It looks as sharp as my HDTV now! And that is no serious exaggeration, since I have both TVs in the same room to compare. I can really see the difference going from SD to HD using just the VGA cable. I strongly urge anyone out there who has a 360 and is using SD, to just plug it into your computer monitor and it will immediately look much sharper and clearer.
I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore gamer, I'm more of a casual gamer with an interest in other gaming stuff - but I rarely get the time to go out of my way to try half the games that come out. There will always be a few titles that will definitely grip me (such as Bioshock, Mass Effect and the upcoming Fallout 3). However, there are also a ton of games out there that come out, and are great games in their own way, but I'll have to give them a miss due to time constraints.
One game that I've stayed away from playing despite wanting to get my hands on was Bully. At one point I contemplated getting a PS2 Slim and hook it up with my TV, just to play that game! However, I'm glad I never put that insane idea into fruition since Rockstar released the game on Nintendo Wii and XBox 360 a while ago. I went and bought it on the 360 today and I've been having a great time with it so far.
A lot of people described Bully as Grand Theft Auto but for kids. I wouldn't really say it's that, since while there is a lot of free roaming, it's not quite the GTA-style freedom. It's set in a boarding school called Bullworth Academy, one of the worst schools in the country where you've been dumped off. As the new student, you're going to have to stand up for yourself and make a name.
The game has an interesting and enjoyable plot as well as a great deal of side missions. There is always something to do in the game. The premise is original, and I like the way Rockstar implemented prefects as the 'police' around the school. They also managed to put the different social cliques you get, which would be gangs in a normal GTA game. You have to earn your respect and do missions to work your way to the top.
On the whole, Bully is an extremely enjoyable game. I'm having a lot of fun with even going to the classes in the game, as well as doing the missions. I'm still pretty early on, however I'm sure it'll keep me glued.
Super Monkey Ball Patch for iPhoneby Shabbir on Tuesday, 2nd September 2008
I only blogged yesterday about the new iPhone firmware, and also about Super Monkey Ball, and there's already a patch available! The release date on the patch was 31st August, however it appeared in my update list just last night.
I was hoping and praying that Sega would release a patch fixing the issue of sensitivity. However, this was not done, instead the patch simply adds a new Help section, which features a tutorial and instructions. The tutorial is particularly useful for getting a feel for the sensitivity, since it provides a nice small diagram showing at what angle you are holding your iPhone and how much it is tilted - I really think they should somehow incorporate that into the actual game itself.
Another thing included in this patch which was definitely needed, was the ability to save your game when you exit the program. It doesn't quite save the game, however it'll pause it and give you the option to resume from that point next time you open the game. This is a very nice and necessary feature, since the game doesn't save your progress until you complete 10 levels - and seeing how difficult this game is, that'll be a while!
iPhone 2.0.2 Firmware Impressionsby Shabbir on Monday, 1st September 2008
A while ago I blogged about upgrading the firmware on my iPhone to 1.1.4 and having it Jailbroken. I was pretty satisfied with having it that way but started to notice that applications were slowly being dropped from the Installer. The reason being that the 2.0 firmware version includes an App Store officially, supplied by Apple, where you can download applications (some are free, others aren't). So, after careful consideration, I finally decided to upgrade my firmware.
Firstly, the upgrading process is a lengthy one. It looked like it effectively formats the iPhone, installs the new firmware, and then restores your data. Oh and it's also worth noting that the firmware download itself weighed in around 300mb! The latest firmware version at the moment is 2.0.2, which was just released over a week. The details regarding this particular iteration have been scarce, with Apple stating that it contains bug fixes. A lot of people have said that the update is to address issues with 3G, since the reception has been poor according to a lot of customers.
I'm still using the first generation of the iPhone anyway, so any 3G issues are irrelevant to me. The main reason like I stated for me upgrading to 2.0 was for the App Store, and I haven't been disappointed. With applications being officially supported, I have definitely noticed that they don't crash as often as unsupported applications did before I upgraded. Plus there is now the option to purchase applications, which means that developers can look at creating professional programs and put more time and effort into them.
I've been sucked into purchasing a few applications, all of them being games! The first was Super Monkey Ball. Graphically, Super Monkey Ball looks amazing. I've played a few games in the series before, most notably the GameBoy Advance version which had the most enjoyable multi player mode - boxing! The iPhone version certainly has flaws, and that being it's very difficult to control. The game uses the iPhone's accelerometer to move the platform in order to get your monkey in a hamster ball to the goal. However, the sensitivity is just too much, and you will find yourself frustrated very soon with the amount of times you fall off the platform.
Another problem with Super Monkey Ball was that it will only save your progress if you complete a set of 10 levels. Therefore, you will really need to spend quite a bit of time playing continuously in order to make progress through the game. If you exit the application, your progress won't be saved and you must start from the beginning again. I really hope that Sega look at these issues and address them. An advantage of the App Store is that you can provide updates for applications, and I hope that we can get a serious of patches to fix these problems.
I also purchased Crash Bandikoot Nitro Kart 3D, which is a very enjoyable racing game, much like Super Mario Kart on the Nintendo consoles. It plays very well, and again uses the accelerometer. You don't need to worry about acceleration and your speed, but only control the turning by tilting your iPhone. The graphics are very slick, and the majority of the time it maintains a stable frame rate too.
A few other applications I've tried are the Remote app (which allows you to control your iTunes on your computer wirelessly), Palringo (which is an instant messaging client for a lot of major services like AIM, MSN, etc.), TubeStatus (which shows the status of the London underground services and Wikipanion (which is Wikipedia, but on your iPhone). There is a good variety of applications available, so a lot of people will be happy with the App Store.