Insert Coin #5Clearing the Road..

Unless you've been living under a rock, you are bound to know that Grand Theft Auto 4 is coming out this Tuesday - a title of which I am very much looking forward to. Now, I know that my gaming time will be consumed with it, a lot of my recent diggs have been little tidbits of information concerning aspects of the game. A full review by IGN that I recently read (and dugg) said that the main story will come in about 25-45 hours, dependent on player skill so there's clearly a lot of content to get through. Post Tuesday I therefore know that the only game I will be playing will be GTA4 so I thought I'd have a revisit of some of my unfinished games - give them half a chance before they get blown away by the new kid on the block.

Jumping back on to COD4 inspired Insert Coin #4 but the majority of my 360 time has been consumed with completing the story of Mass Effect.
Now Mass Effect is a huge Sci-Fi RPG made by Bioware - the same people responsible for the Knights of the Old Republic games and are considered the best western RPG makers out there. Now I don't want to turn this into a Mass Effect review, but as an overview statement, I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed the story - it is the old classic, machines rising up and rebelling against their masters but despite that it was incredibly well told and did I mention I enjoyed it?

Some people are criticised the game in that it is nothing more than an interactive movie. Some would consider that a great compliment, and to be honest it is an RPG, so other criticisms that the combat isn't up to scratch are a little unjustified. It is very smart that I can take my character (Jimiminar Shepard of course) with all his experience and skills and start the campaign all over again - particularly useful for going for the achivements which demand several complete playthroughs.
So I went through the first time, aiming to be a paragon player as opposed to renegade - although the rather cool thing of the game is that it's not so much good vs evil, whatever happens you have to save the galaxy, it's more about the choices you can make in order to achieve that goal. Anyways, I will go through it a second time eventually with a renegade character, I've already punched out a elderly scientist with a screw loose, so should be fun.
My first playthrough was clocked at about 35 hours if the saves are anything to go by, and I didn't do much of the optional side missions, so it is a huge game. And that brings me smoothly onto some minor criticisms I have after playing through. The auto-save feature is effectively non-existent, so reminding myself to save after every enemy encounter is important but I have often forgot and become incredibly frustrated having to repeat half an hour's worth of progress.
I also cannot stand the "driving" sections to the game. The Mako I read in reviews was very easy to control, but I must have had the controller upside down, as I could not manipulate it as I desired - my progress was merely a product of luck and perseverence. It's true you cannot flip it, although I crucuially almost did when I was against the clock, I can't be any more specific without giving spoilers.

Anyways, so that's Mass Effect, a few problems which have been well documented upon the game's release and some of my personal thoughts, but overall a very good game, recommended to anyone that likes their sci-fi and/or RPGs. Another game I've been trying out before the GTA4's arrival is Dead Rising. I believe it was actually a release title, now 2 years old, and well it's graphically not as impressive as games coming out now, but it is effectively a zombie-infested playground where an incredible amount of items can be used as a weapon. Again very cool, but again a frustration thanks to the saving your game progress. Capcom have made it their staple to have save locations, and I always end up dying literally at the furthest point away from one. Also as much as hitting zombies with benches or knocking them down with shopping trolleys, the combat can be clunky at times, a lag is apparent after swinging a bin where you are vulnerable, especially in amongst a crowd of zombies.

I am currently renting Dead Rising thanks to using LoveFilm. The main reason is to check out some films, so any recommendations are greatly appreciated. They also have games to rent, so my thinking is to have a game for about a week at a time, and swap films like every three days or something, I dunno I'm just trying out the service atm, but if I can get that going, then that would be very smart.

Here's looking forward to Tuesday, where once that GTA4 disc goes, I think it's gonna be a long time before it comes out.