#12 Soul Calibur IV

The next step towards myself renting Civilization Revolution took a little detour and with me changing my lovefilm plan to save a bit of money, Soul Calibur IV will be my last rented game for the foreseeable future. The reason being there are the likes of Fable 2 and Fallout 3, huge RPGs that I'll lose many a hour to, not to mention other upcoming releases like Gears of War 2. Then, factor in some of the games I've yet to really play through, Grand Theft Auto 4, The Orange Box, Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise, and it's obvious that I won't have the time to continue renting games that I'm interested in, just not enough to purchase. It's a shame that the last one of these is Soul Calibur IV...

Now, one point I need to stress, and probably the most important thing to take away from this, is that I don't like fighting games. Now that may be a result of me being generally poor at them which I'll get on to later - consequently this "review-of-sorts" will probably be on the short side.

Before I tear apart the mechanics and all the "different modes" of the game, a quick note on the visuals. With fighting games the immediate foreground is the only area of concern and with this being a relatively small area to render, fighting games have always been very beautiful and Soul Calibur is no exception. All of your (presumably) favourite characters are back along with a couple of new characters, including some Star Wars stars (see later...)

Pick a dude and fight a different dude. Sometimes you may have 2,3 or even 4 dudes in a row to kill, and you may be lucky to have one (or more) backup dude, repeat ad infinitum.

One notable feature of this game is the character creator, something I looked into after giving the story and arcade modes a quick go. Although it's understandable, the character you create is effectively a re-skinned clone of one of the existing characters in-game. There's not the option to build your own move-list unfortunately. Despite that, the look of your character is very customisable, and new weapons, clothes, accessories are unlocked as you make progress through the game. That being said once I had made a half-naked, busty chick with a squeaky voice, my interest in the character creator had subsided so I moved back into the main game.

So Soul Calibur offers a number of modes: Story, Arcade, Tower of Souls and then there's the online play as well, but in reality all this is the same thing over and over again. Pick a dude and fight a different dude. Sometimes you may have 2,3 or even 4 dudes in a row to kill, and you may be lucky to have one (or more) backup dude, repeat ad infinitum.

The main reason I don't like these style of games is the the tedium of going through looking up a character's move list, returning to the game and I'm there staring at the pad trying to perfect the diagonally-down X, X, Y move and getting frustrated that my character is instead performing the forward X, X move every time. Add to that the time spent looking at the pad trying to get the timing down, only to miss the AI character take off 50% of my health - it does not lead to an enjoyable experience.
If I ever pull off a very cool looking move, it really is a fluke and whilst the more extravagant combos do reward you with better looking and more damaging moves, I can never repeat them again - and that is more of a reflection of my own "playstyle", not necessarily a flaw with the game.

Something I can't stand about this genre are the pre-fight exchanges and Soul Calibur is no exception. Expect your character to taunt their opponent "I will have victory" or "get outta of my way!" are prime examples, or seemingly random lines - I find it hard to take seriously, and it's something which could easily be dropped. Are these build-up cutscenes there to build "drama" or are they masking loading times? Speaking of which, the game has surprisingly long loading times - definitely a game that will benefit from the "rip to hard drive" feature coming in the new dashboard, sorry the New Xbox Experience, sorry my bad...

Moving on and the game also boasts the inclusion of characters from Star Wars. The Apprentice from the recent The Force Unleashed game and Yoda (Xbox 360) or Darth Vader (PS3) are the included cast. There's no way to convince me of a cohesive story why these guys are in the Soul Calibur Universe. I played through the story with Yoda for the achievement, there was something about a rift caused by the force that teleported Yoda through, WTF?! The apprentice seems a little overpowered during my play through, he was consistently the roadblock I hit during the Arcade, plus his mutterings of "kill" and "die!" were pretty lame - maybe that's why I lost my concentration and subsequently the bouts...

It sounds like I really ripped into this game and I'll reiterate what I said at the start "I don't like fighting games". I have friends who are fans of the genre and the Soul Calibur series so I could just be a button-mashing idiot that can't handle more than four buttons. The test comes to how often you come back to playing the game and with this being a rented game, I wanted to get my monies worth, but every time I loaded up the game, the same mechanic stared back at me, only with increasingly sophisticated AI which can easily trounce my very "one-dimensional button-mash and hope for the best" mentality. Whilst I usually try a rented game for a week, (sometimes longer) I had to cut it short as there was nothing in this game for me that enticed me back.

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What's your Green Karma?

I got the idea for this post whilst on the commute into work. For those not in the know, part of my commute consists of a bus journey. Getting closer to work, and I more often than not see a queue of cars in the other direction and as I go by pretty much every one has just one person in the car - maybe 1 in 20 there is a single passenger. Anyways, this got me thinking, that whilst I am tied down to public transport, I'm doing my bit to save the environment as opposed to these non-carpoolers.

Before I get shot down, I'm not claiming myself to be some kind of eco-warrior here - whilst I do subscribe to the public transport, I have a host of power-hungry, and no doubt world destroying, electronics at home, so there is some kind of balance. To answer the question I threw out there: What's my green karma? I'd probably argue that considering the above, I'm going to argue it comes out at about neutral. To help swing the pendulum in my favour I also buy fairtrade bananas from Sainsburys, so check me out...

That being said, as soon as I (finally) pass my driving test, I will ditch the joy of sharing a rickety and sometimes smelly bus full of noisy kids, chavs and drunken bums and become one of those lone occupants in the queues of cars I see. Does that make me a hypocrite? Probably. Am I ok with that? Oh yes.

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You can't change your family...

And myself, I wouldn't want to. My family are awesome, I love them very much. Just this weekend, I moaned/reported to my family the grief I've been having with some DIY issues in my house. Namely, a broken door handle that has been so for what feels like forever, and recently the handle of my toilet shearing and snapping off, leaving with having to operate the toilet within its very bowels (pun intended). I had a go to fix both myself, but as it goes, I lack the misfortune to purchase replacements which don't quite fit exactly, and the tools to put them right. My family jumped to the rescue and said they would come visit the following day - awesome!

An afternoon of DIY-oriented fun with my Grandad, and the rest of the family helping clear up my neglected garden was the outcome and am very happy with the results. It also has become tradition for them to bring some supplies, amongst which are a number of quiches cooked by my Nan (again awesome!). It's not said enough, but I very much appreciate the support and efforts of my family. As anyone who knows me quite well, they would describe me as being close with my family, and that has grown with the events of the last year; me living on my own for the very first time and the accompanying ineptitude to make new friends in a strange new county. I am on the phone much more often, and although I do tend to regress back to a child in their company, it's still really nice to be around them.

Although my family don't fully understand the tech/computing stuff I want to do for a living or looking into the past, my wish to take Computer Science as a degree, they are(were) in support of all that, and no doubt will continue to do so in the future, whatever decisions I decide to take.

Just a short and sweet post really to say how much my family rock. It's a little cliched (and kinda broken logically) but you don't miss it till it's gone. I think the lesson to take away is a reminder not to take things for granted, and remember to show credit where it's due.

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#11 Burnout Paradise

It should be clichéd when entering Paradise City, the new latest open-world iteration in the Burnout franchise, the Guns 'n' Roses hit of the same name plays in the background, but it's really not, it just feels right. The core mechanics are still here; the boosting, quick reaction swerving through traffic, takedowns and the exhilirating sense of speed which no-other racer can seem to match, only this time the idea is full immersion, all the front end menus are gone - you press start and you're dropped straight into the city.

Now Burnout sits firmly at the arcade end of the scale of racers, hell they don't even include a speedo on the HUD. Each intersection in the game marks the start of a particular event. Simply stop at the lights, hit both triggers and you're straight in. A quick voiceover from DJ Atomica (replacement of DJ Crash?) explains the brief of the event. More often than not it will be a race from the intersection you stopped at to one of eight points on the city. At first glance it seems cheap that there so few finish lines to drive toward, but having these handful of persistent landmarks means that soon you'll be fine-tuning your routes and finding those useful shortcuts. This is where the open world setting comes in to its own - there is no defined route you have to take, you are given the start and finish points and anything inbetween is upto you. The direction of the finish is given as a compass bearing, and the game will offer up recommended turns but there's no obligation to take them.

The core mechanics are still here; the boosting, quick reaction swerving through traffic, takedowns and the exhilirating sense of speed which no-other racer can seem to match

At first, hurtling through traffic, battling as well as holding off your opponents (takedowns still count!) and having to cope with trying to plot your route and decipher the extra information can be daunting. In fact, that's the main reason why I was put off by the demo, a popular consensus apparently. Playing the full game, it's a much more enjoyable experience. It's probably a good time as any to mention the graphics of the game. Put simply the game is beautiful in all of its HDR lighted glory. Draw distance is very good which helps to see those cars fast approaching, and the frame rate is probably the most impressive of all - never dropping in my time with it, something that is very important to give that blistering sense of speed.

I do have some reservations. During the first few events there is a longing to open up the menu and hit restart if it's not going too well, but it is understandable that would break the metaphor of this open persistent world. That's something I'll accept but I wish there was an abort option. A couple of times I've missed a crucial corner, lost a lot of time and know that I am resigned to finishing 7th or 8th, but the event has to be completed no matter what to let you back into the open world - it's a small complaint. A popular mode from previous titles was of course the crash junctions and they have all but disappeared unfortunately. There are time attack records held on every road (another extra to keep you busy) and there are crash records (amount of money in damages) on the intersections but they are completely optional which is a shame.

As strange as it sounds, I want to draw comparisons with WoW so bear with me. After finishing an event, successful or not, there is usually another event to complete nearby - that's what I found so addictive about WoW, with travelling between quest hubs, there is always one more quest that's ready to be started, and the same applies to Paradise. And if there are no events available, there are all the extra non-event stuff to do, so the game's momentum never lets up. Finding all the smashboards and the destructable billboards are a welcome distraction if the racing gets too stressful, not to mention the super jumps to be found throughout the city. Unlocking of most new cars takes the form of a challenge where by you have to takedown the car in question, a lot of fun to be had chasing that shiny new model and a real sense of accomplishment - completely different from being handed many cars after finishing a single race which the series has been guilty of in the past.

I spent only the briefest amount of time online during the time I had with this title, but what I saw was very cool (not to mention the generous handing out of achievements for my short duration :D). Along with the front end menus being chucked, there is no lobby screen as such, the city itself becomes the lobby where you are free to explore or more commonly smash up others. Soon enough the host will decide an event and off you go. An effort has been made to make the whole experience streamlined, there is of course the aforementioned triggering of events, jumping onto an online match is literally a quick flick of the D-pad away and there's the repair depots, fuel stations, paint shops and junkyards which keep the menus at bay.

In closing, a mention has to be made of the post-release development of the game. A few weeks before I got my hands on the game, they released the "Cagney" update, a large, completely free update which adds literally hundreds of extra online challenges and irons out some of the creases no doubt. I can't say how the game was before but the commitment to putting in all the extra content really does boost the longevity of Paradise. Soon to be added are bikes into the mix (I'm gonna hold off on a PGR4 tie-in rant...) as well as day/night cycles, where the nighttime comes with a high number of unique challenges.

If you are a fan of racing sims, then this probably isn't the game for you. On the other hand if you like your racing very quick and dirty and have the reactions that will have your eyes out on stalks then look this one up. It's no secret that I love my racing games and if you like them too then I strongly recommend Burnout Paradise.

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#10 Bully

Still hoping to get Civilization: Revolution as my next rented game, but instead I received Bully this time. More accurately I should say Bully: Scholarship Edition, as this is a "beefed up" conversion from the original PS2 game. Now this is one of the original games (along with Dead Rising) that I put on the "games" queue for LoveFilm - it has been one of the games which came along, I said I'd give it a try, but it must have been a busy period or I was short of cash or something as it's been a long time since it's release.

Now it might be quite lazy to say that Bully is GTA set in a school, but in a nutshell that's essentially it.It is made by Rockstar also, but actually the Vancouver studio rather than Rockstar North who are famously responsible for the GTA series.
The presentation is just like GTA, down to the style of the mini-map (curiously the health meter is very reminiscent of GTA4, which came much after this game - one idea that went the other way), the construction and pacing of the cut scenes, even down to how the camera works during tutorial set pieces and how the helpful popup text looks.

Bully was surrounded with a lot of controversy pending its release, not unlike the scrutiny that the GTA games have received. Many believed that it would glorify bullying in schools and promote it as a positive image. Thanks to this controversy, the game sold pretty well and actually the game does not in fact give the above message, the story in fact offers a flipside where you partner up with the less popular cliches in the school and help them overcome the jocks and bullies.

So following in the same mould as GTA , there are the multiple mission-based storylines dotted throughout the school and later the nearby town. That being said, the sandbox in Bully is not quite upto par with the GTA series, there is scope to annoy fellow students with the variety of "mischief" weapons such as laying marbles to trip them, stink bombs, itching powder etc, but it does feel very limited and only serves to be a short-lived distraction.

Adding to the now tried and tested formula are the idea of Classes which you attend a the school. These take the form of short mini-games which more often than not are quicktime events which rely on well timed button presses that scroll on screen. The only mini-game I struggled on was English class (embarrassingly) which takes the form of a word jumble where you have to construct as many words as possible from a set of letters in the time allotted - I was not able to pass that class after the couple goes I had *shakes head*. They are a welcome relief from the free-roaming mission-based storyline, but are rather too simplistic to gain any real joy from them.

The GTA comparison has been done to death but we're almost through. Like in GTA, Bully does use a number of varied gameplay mechanics including sneaking sections a la Splinter Cell/Metal Gear Solid, Some first person action with the slingshot and some driving sections in the go-karts. Now, each of these sections in isolation do not hold up against titles which specialise in that genre, but just like GTA, Bully is more than the sum of its parts - the many options that the game offers a varying experience along the lengthy journey to completion.

The game is a lot of fun but is ultimately let down by a poor conversion. A lot of the graphics are lo-res and look down right ugly in HD, plus there are frame rate issues for a lot of the game. If these can be overlooked, then Bully is a deep enough experience to derive some enjoyment from it. I only had the game for about a week and I made it approx 25-30% through the game, and I didn't bother much with all the optional missions. Not to mention there is a multiplayer option where a friend can jump into your game which I didn't try out, I am not sure how much they can help your story progress - most likely is that it's like the 2 player option in previous GTA titles where you are both limited to the confines of the single screen and you cause havoc as you see fit.

Overall, Bully is good, not great. If open-world sandbox games are your thing then look it up, Rockstar are kings of the genre and whilst this is the not their best (a different studio probably being the main reason behind that, no Rockstar North magic), it is certainly a good offering and an interesting take on the genre , not featuring any guns, gangsters or serious crimes.

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