XBOX 360 - PREVIEW - Call of Duty: World at War

"Graphically, apart from the obvious character model textures now representing WW2 soldiers, not a whole lot has changed. Even after nearly a year since CoD: 4 the engine still looks stunning and runs at a consistent frame rate despite whatever chaos is ensuing."

The full preview can be found and read here at TALKXBOX.COM

XBOX 360 - EDITORIAL - Games You Might Overlook This Xmas '08

In this article, I explore some of the games that seem destined to be remembered as “also-rans,” yet at any other time of the year they could have well garnered some considerable excitement and attention amongst the Xbox 360 consumers. I wonder which of the following titles have slipped under your radar in your pre-festive planning?

The full editorial can be found and read here at TALKXBOX.COM

XBOX 360 - REVIEW - MEGAMAN 9

Capcom’s Megaman 9 is the latest game in the long running Megaman/Rockman series which originally made its debut on the NES all the way back in 1987. Considered as the follow-up to Megaman 8 released nearly twelve years ago (excluding its numerous spin-offs), the game’s engine has been built from the ground up to recreate an authentic experience fitting of the 8-bit machines of the past. Background music throughout is appropriately MIDI sounding with its sound range limited to the five channels of Nintendo’s original hardware. Graphical restrictions are also in place with a limited colour palette and even a faithful recreation of sprite flicker, widely prevalent in other titles you would play around this era of video gaming.

If you are a newcomer to the Megaman series, or if you’re too young to remember any of the classic 2D platformers from the genre’s hey-day, then prepare yourself for a shock. This game certainly won’t provide you the comfort zones of similar titles such as Super Mario Brothers or Sonic the Hedgehog. Indeed, calling the game “hard” would be a gigantic understatement.

Megaman 9’s story has you set against a plethora of rampaging robots which have mysteriously been let loose to rampage across the world. It’s down to you as protagonist Megaman to destroy these monstrous machines and at the same time to prove the innocence of your incarcerated friend Dr. Light.

There are a total of 8 Robot Masters in the game of which you need to destroy, each one compromising of a themed stage before the actual boss fight itself. Which order you decide to fight these Robot Masters in is left entirely down to you and is easily selectable from the main screen. Managing to defeat a Robot Master will award you with that particular guardian’s special weapon which one other Robot Master will be especially weak against. This throws up an element of strategy in your game progression or alternatively can provide you an extra level of challenge if you want to try to complete the game with just Megaman’s default blaster.

This may all sound straight forward enough and with each stage clocking in at only a theoretical five minutes to finish, you could indeed be mistaken for thinking this game is nothing than an hour long cakewalk. Unfortunately for you in Megaman 9 you will die.., you will die a great deal.

Making it past a single screen can be a horrific trial and error process sapping hours of your time to just arrive at the Robot Master’s lair. This isn’t to suggest that the level design is bad, just that the game doesn’t afford you to make any lazy mistakes in your timing or mid-air recalculations in your platforming. Landing or even briefly touching a bed of spikes means an instant death, there is also no double jump or post-jump float meaning a misjudged leap will lead to nothing than a grizzly demise and prompt level restart. Throughout the levels you are given the opportunity to pick up bolts (the game’s currency) which post stage completion can be used to buy extra lives and energy packs. This is all fair and well if you can actually finish a stage, until that point you’re stuck with what little you have at the commencement of the adventure.

Outside the core game, Capcom have added thirty or so additional achievements to obtain at your leisure. These achievements range from trifling challenges such as killing 500 enemies to the devishly impossible “complete the game without taking any damage” which only the hardest of the hardcore could ever have any remote possibility of obtaining. If you’re considering purchasing this game purely for gamerscore points then you’d be well advised to focus your attention elsewhere. Another additional feature of Megaman 9 is the speed run option. At the main menu you’re offered the option to perform a timed speed run on any stage of your choosing, all weapons unlocked and readily available. The resulting time (providing you don’t get killed) is then uploaded to the XBL leaderboard, here you can compare just how inferior you are at this game in contrast to everybody else worldwide and to compete against your friend’s times.

Megaman 9 is a game which will be equally loathed and loved by the 360 community. It is far too difficult for most gamers weaned on the Ubisoft philosophy of “everyone should be able to finish” to stick with, even as far as completing just a single level. On the other hand, those who relinquish a gaming challenge will diligently work away at a complex section, ultimately walking away with the satisfaction that they managed to complete one of the toughest games this side of Ninja Gaiden.

The very fact an original game of this kind was able to be released at all stands as a testament to XBL’s ability to distribute online content in an affordable and profitable manner for the development studios. We can only hope that other long-abandoned franchises of the past are soon revisited in a similar fashion. Until that time, providing you can stomach a challenge, Megaman 9 is a fantastic 2D platformer. Exquisite presentation and a multitude of extra features make it a must have arcade purchase alongside Castle Crashers & Braid released this Autumn.

Paw Rating: 4/5
Good: Challenging, worthy addition to existing series, plenty of replay.
Bad: Unwelcoming for beginners, controls don't map well to analogue stick.

XBOX 360 - EDITORIAL - Ten Functionalities..

"While certainly not revealing any form of hardware or software holy grail per-se, such as magically enabling the connection of an external hard drive, enabling Blu-Ray playback on the standard internal Hitachi DVD drive or being able to no-scope at Halo 3, here is a compiled list of ten functionalities the average Xbox 360 newcomer may not know. Maybe you'll learn something too!"

The full editorial can be found and read here at TALKXBOX.COM

XBOX 360 - REVIEW - BLUE DRAGON

Blue Dragon by Mistwalker is what you would class as one the first next generation JRPG's. Created by an ensemble dream team of the genre, surely this title should be a measure of perfection that no others can hope to reach? Well no, not quite.

There has always seemed to be two different class types in the JRPG genre. One in which the game is primarily story driven with a sparse amount of fighting and the other being a pure test of patience level grinding (albeit with subsequent rewards for your time). Everybody interested in JRPG's has a preference of one style over the other, Blue Dragon almost without question falls into the latter category. This isn't to say there is no story in Blue Dragon, just that it's so predictable, ill-written and by the book that in no point during the games sixty hour time span will it put you to the edge of your seat. The vagueness is such a problem in parts that during the story you won't quite understand why certain events take place, or why characters are behaving in a particular manner.

In terms of gameplay, there's no real time MMO style battle system ala FFXII or any of that nonsense here. This game’s gimmick is that rather than equip weapons or armour, the main characters use their own magical shadows to fight for them. While this looks very pretty in a crisp 720p resolution, the level of detail in the characters is almost near non-existent. Rather than scales and scars and other such goodies that you'd wish (and expect) to see on these menacing shadow creatures, instead they look more like shiny balloon animals that some clownshoes at a shopping mall would make. Even worse is the severe framerate slowdown whenever a particle effect comes into the equation, this ends up applying to just about every spell or attack you make by game end. While not utterly game wrecking it certainly underwhelms the whole experience.

The characters all level up in class systems as they fight. All the usual classes you'd expect are here; Sword Master, White Magician, Black Magician etc. Despite the game manual telling you otherwise, essentially to form any kind of effective unit you'll want to roll out the genre norm of physical tanks in front and magic healers at the back. As only a few skills are of any real use in this game, you're going to be levelling up at least three out of five characters in exactly the same manner which proves to be quite a dull and slow paced affair.

As no weapons or armour are involved due to the characters not actually fighting, customisation is offered in terms of accessories. Equipping different accessories changes statistic differentials and some also come added with status effects which help with the larger boss fights. Sadly when the accessories are equipped they make no change to the characters appearance, also the sheer number of them which anybody can freely use with little restraint make the reward of finding or buying them fairly non-existent. In another game while you might get the visceral excitement of seeing your character waving his brand new shiny sword about here you have nothing, not even a new attack animation. So as well as a weak story, the lack of customisation or reward makes it a very hard game to enjoy from a grinding perspective too.

On a positive note the voice acting is actually rather good, with only a few bad apples in the bunch of voice actors. Having played it through in French, the lip-syncing is acceptable and only the character Kluke seemed to under-perform every single line given to her. This doesn't help that the dialogue is awful to start with but it saves the story from being a complete disaster. The musical score is very underwhelming and lacking in variety. Despite the acclaimed Nobuo Uematsu being the game’s composer, it's almost as if he used all his previously rejected Final Fantasy scores for this project.

Despite such a dream team being responsible for the game, it seems a crime of money over passion took place. Money was thrown at the three big names involved making the game purely as an attempt to win over the Japanese market at the 360's launch. However I don't think anyone's heart in production was really fully involved; the story, artwork and music are all very underwhelming and reek of doing the most modicum amount of work possible. If it wasn't for such a shortage of the genre on the 360, it'd be really hard to recommend this game to anybody considering the severely unbalanced ratio of time vs. reward. On par with Enchanted Arms or PSU, compared to Lost Odyssey or Tales of Versperia it’s worth avoiding all together.

Paw Rating: 2/5
Good: Long game length, impressive voice acting, interesting premise.
Bad: Poor story and pacing, lack of character customisation, severe framerate issues.

XBOX 360 - REVIEW - VIVA PINATA: Trouble In Paradise

"Viva Piñata: Trouble In Paradise believes heavily in the adage “If it's not broke, don't fix it.” The changes made since Viva Piñata are subtle yet still just about enough to be significant.

The full review for Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise can be found here at TALKXBOX.COM

Announcement - talkxbox

I've recently accepted a position as a trial writer at the website http://www.talkxbox.com/. While I have no idea of knowing if this will be a short or long term arrangement for me, the majority of my output will now be conducted at this address. While I am not allowed to post submitted articles directly into this blog (or any other website), my EIC has permitted me to post an excerpt and a forward link of which I will be doing here in the future. Any other content which doesn't get used for talkxbox.com will be posted in full as per-usual.

Regards
~Mitzy
xx

XBOX 360 - REVIEW - THE DARKNESS

A highly hyped release all the way back from when the 360 first launched, The Darkness is a FPS which despite it's positives found itself overshadowed (excuse the pun) by other such grade A++ titles in its year of release such as COD4, Orange Box & Bioshock.

The Darkness is a game based on a comic published by MadCow Productions. Although somewhat of an obscure comic title when compared to it's Marvel or DC brethren, it's a story that transcribes well into a video game experience.

As main protagonist Jackie Estucado, you find yourself in downtown New York on the day of your 21st birthday. As everyone regularly does on celebrating this milestone in ones life, Jackie happens to be in the process of performing a hit for the mob (who also happen to be his adopted family). Needless to say, it's not long before events all go tits up and Jackie is left to figure out what went wrong and why he's now found himself top on his families hit-list.

For the first hour or so the game plays like any other FPS shooter you may have fumbled with the last 5 years or so. Backgrounds are nicely rendered, lighting effects give the game a very creepy atmosphere and the delivery of the voice acting is suitably Brooklyn-esque, brilliantly delivered and very definitely M-Rated.

The game first strikes you as being incredibly brutal in it's imagery, almost straight after the intro sequence you find yourself engaged in conversation with a friend who just so happens to have his shins protruding from his legs after a rather nasty car accident. That's not to mention a previous ex-colleague who a few minutes prior had a rather nasty collision between his head and incoming traffic.

So okay, it's yet another run of the mill gory FPS you may be thinking at this point, big deal. Well, the games real pièce de résistance is still to come. Jackie being a bit of a goth type (a moot point that I'll raise later) just so happens to have a curse bestowed on him which is known as the 'Darkness' - clue in the title.

The Darkness (superbly voiced by Mike Patton) acts as a creepy as hell living manifestation that resides inside Jackie's soul. Emerging as a two headed tentacle monster which protrudes from out Estucados spine. It can rip enemy hearts straight out their chests, sliver undetected through ventilation grills for stealth kills, provide protection as a meat shield and many other further abilities that unlock during the progress of your game.

Darkness ability is certainly a lot of fun to play with. While maybe not as technically impressive as say HL2's gravity gun from a physics stand point, impaling a mobster through his chest, flinging him aside and then watching your two tentacle heads fight over who gets to eat the inner organs afterwards doesn't get old neither does it get repetitive.

On-top of all the regular abilities you'll also acquire the power to summon Imp like creatures which can perform abilities for you such as laying down suppressive fire or acting as kamikaze bombers. While the AI on these creatures isn't the best in the business, they'll get you out of a pinch and the one-liners and actions they'll come out with (such as taking a piss over a dead enemy) are quite amusing and add a touch of humour to a very grim game.

The strategic element in using your darkness power in combat lays within the dark itself. Step into any light source and smoke plumes out of you and your energy bar quickly starts to sap away. So to make the most out of a combat situation you'll find yourself Splinter Cell style shooting out light sources and lurking deep in the levels shadows. This mechanic mixes the game up somewhat and stops it from becoming a 2 dimensional turkey shoot, without your darkness shield ability you'll find it doesn't take long for you to be gunned down by the enemies fire as a perfect example.

So while still a FPS at heart, the combat system certainly alleviates it from being anything "run of the mill". Continuing throughout the game, the adult tone of the story gets ever darker and ever more disturbing including a tour through a hellish WW1 dream sequence with sobbing quadriplegic soldiers, having to perform your own suicide while watching yourself in a mirror and at one point having a cordless drill pushed into your skull in a torture sequence which resonates through your controller. Needless to say it's an 18+ rated game and with good reason, some of the sequences are quite simply ghoulish.

Horrors aside, the story also has touching moments. Visiting your girlfriends apartment and offering you the choice to sit and watch TV with her (in real time) being one of them. It definitely works to the effect of grounding you back to reality around some quite unbelievable circumstances occurring to Jackie.

It's a fairly sized 12-15 hour game, and many times it'll give you optional things to do outside the linear story path. Finding hidden phone numbers, helping strangers you bump into on the underground network or boosting your darkness power by eating more hearts, there's always motivation to explore your surroundings either way.

For all the games positives their are also a fair number of negatives;

The games weaponry is almost certainly one of the biggest gripes. You set off from the outset dual wielding pistols, and while the ammo capacity isn't as big as the assault rifles and such that you find later in the game, their accuracy is almost second to none. This gives you little to no incentive to ever swap out for anything other than these pistols. Automatic weaponry sprays wildly all over the place and your darkness abilities can usually overcome anything you can't simply headshot from a distance. Staying with offensive ability, another game damaging problem is once you acquire an ability named 'black hole'. This is overwhelmingly powerful and while you'll have to wait a minute or so for it to recharge any group of enemies can be dealt with minimum of fuss by throwing one of these nearby, negating any challenge from that moment onwards.

As far as story goes The Darkness is perhaps more harmed by the comic book roots that it tries to stick so closely by. Jackie is just not a believable character for the setting that he's in, a 21 year old long haired goth, trench-coat and all who looks and sounds more like he's in his early 30's. Why is someone like that hanging around with 'old-way' mafia types sporting fedora hats n'all? It just doesn't fit or make a lot of sense. That isn't to say that the story doesn't work on any level at all, just that you have to zone into 'comic mode' to get away with some of its eccentricities.

The ending without giving any plot away is also rather disappointing, the journey as such is far greater than the sum of its parts with the exception of the 'hell' sequences which go on far too long and begin to come across as filler after a length of time rather than meaningful play.

The game also sports a multiplayer component, but it was never obviously intended to be a core component of the end user experience. It's about as in depth as say 'Prey' or any other non-military based shooters ever are; minimum features, minimum effort.

Overall the Darkness is in all accounts an enjoyable game and well worth picking up at a budget price as a weekend killer. While it didn't stand a hope in hell against titles such as COD4 & Bioshock at its release time, it definitely does plenty of things right in terms of it's presentation. It contains both a well scripted story, mature dialogue and offers a truly unique game mechanic which would be hard to replicate in any other similar FPS title.

Paw Rating: 3/5
Good: Gripping mature story, fantastic dialogue & voice acting, interesting game mechanics.

Bad: Poor weaponry, easy difficulty, repetitive, little replay, needless multiplayer.

NINTENDO DS - REVIEW - APOLLO JUSTICE

Apollo Justice is the fourth game of the semi-popular 'Phoenix Wright' or 'Gyakuten Saiban' as they are known in Japan.

While the original 3 games with the limited exception of the final case in Ace Attorney were ported from the GBA, Apollo Justice is entirely built ground up for the DS system making it a first for Capcoms franchise.

Incase you are unaware of the concept of Ace Attorney games, you play as a defense attorney named Phoenix Wright (or in this game) the new rookie Apollo Justice. The main crux of the gameplay is a somewhat updated version of what a point and click adventure would have been 12 years or so ago. Proceedings always start with being introduced to an accused client through your mutual friends who bring with them a complicated back story and an always bizarre unwillingness to tell you what actually happened. You then after a bit of back story proceed to investigate the alleged crime and start piecing together what happened, why it happened and most importantly why your client is innocent.

You achieve this goal through pointing out prosecution contradictions and mistruths in a court room setting by pressing witnesses and presenting evidence. This is all done on the DS via the touch screen and using the microphone to yell 'Objection' or 'Hold It' which adds an extra layer of fun to the proceedings.

Although the game sounds serious and does indeed deal with various grizzly murders, it's anime style presentation and goofy comedy makes it come across as more of a fun amateur detective romp than any serious CSI style crime drama. That being said though the cases can really grip you and some of the twists can really catch you off guard.

Following the conclusion of the 3rd game. Main protagonist Phoenix Wright is no longer an attorney due to losing his license for Perjury. So for this game you play his protege as it were, the oddly named Apollo Justice. This isn't to say Phoenix isn't in the game, infact he's a central character throughout the entire plot, some other characters from previous games make cameo's but for the most part it is an entirely all new cast. This is probably a smart move as a 4th appearance from some of the more annoying cast members (notably Lotta Hart & Larry Butz) would have been borderline tedious at this point in the series.

Maya & Pearl are replaced as comic relief tag along partners by Phoenix's adopted step-daughter Trucy Wright. Not that she's any more normal, you're pretty much exchanging some bizarre druid style sisters for a wannabe trainee magician. Still she converses with you and the people you meet, offers advice and proves to be an important part of the overall story.

There's 4 cases in the game (the usual amount for the series) and they all end up tying together. Some interesting use of the DS technology is involved during events, some that's been seen before in the additional 5th case for the Ace Attorney with some completely new tools such as an X-Ray machine and a sound mixing board.

The games puzzles for the most part are very logical and there's only a few instances of frustration. Notably having to investigate a fairly generic and seemingly unimportant door in a BG to move the game forward and also having to present a specific item of evidence when two pieces in your possession would prove the same point.

There is also some rather daft story twists which are a bit /too/ silly for their own good. Such as a panty thief and a noodle stand vendor who talks endlessly about his uhum 'salty broth'. That being said, some of the low-key ingame humour is actually quite amusing. There's a gangster boss who looks the splitting image of Marlon Brando, a prosecutor named Klavier who spouts lines from classic rock tunes at every opportunity and Mr Hat, who really defies all explanation.

The game is a good length and will take you at least 15-20 hours to finish. There isn't any replay value with this sort of game however so you should take that into consideration when deciding how much you're willing to pay.

For a long time Phoenix Wright fan. This game still has everything you loved about the series since game one. Apollo is an equally endearing protagonist as Phoenix ever was and his own special skill of 'Observation' brings something new just as Psyche-locks did with the second. While some fan-favourite characters such as Miles Edgeworth are MIA references to past ingame material such as the Steel Samurai are still included and worthy of a chuckle when they crop up.

For new-comers although the game makes an attempt at putting the previous games into the past, it still really isn't a recommended starting point. The main theme that runs through Apollo Justice is the events of Phoenix Wright in the past and without experiencing his back story it'd be hard to care exactly why he was wronged the way he was.

As a DS game the presentation is handled fantastically with clean, well animated characters and snappy expertly penned dialogue. The music isn't quite on par with previous games but as it proves quite vital in a murder at a rock concert during the story it still manages to perform its function. The save at anytime function is still present which makes the game easy to play on the move (albeit a little easy if you want to use it to cheat via trial and error).

Overall it's a fantastic game and it'll be interesting to see what direction the Ace Attorney series goes off into next now it's new leading character has been fully established.

Paw Rating: 4/5

Good: Gripping story, witty dialogue, top notch presentation.
Bad: Lack of replay, adult themes 'kiddified' on occasion, save system lowers overall difficulty.

XBOX360 - REVIEW - ROCK BAND

After a rather long and frustrating wait, the EU was finally given tickets to Rockband on the 23rd of May. Rockband being EA's prime time foray (after Boom Boom Rocket) into the exciting world of the rhythm game genre.

With Guitar Hero being one of the biggest selling games of all time and the necessary guitar peripheral sales bringing tidy amounts of profit it was only a matter of time before EA wanted a slice of that pie, buying out the original creators of Guitar Hero -Harmonix.

Rockband at first inspection seems nothing special other than an unimaginative rip-off but aims and succeeds (for the most part) at doing everything in a better and bigger scale. Yes you can play guitar along with tracks as you can in GH, but now you can also sing along just like in Singstar. Still not enough? how about the ultimate selling pitch - drums. Who doesn't at sometime tap along to whatever tune their hearing? Combine these assets along with every song on the disc being a master track, unlike GH's rather dodgy covers. Huge customisation options and a truely endless array of multi player options; online leaderboards, band world tours, score duels. You name it, if you ever wished Guitar Hero could do something it didn't offer chances are Rockband has it.

As there is ultimately 3 disciplines in Rockband, it makes sense for me to cover them each seperately.

Guitar:

If you ever played the Guitar Hero games previously you'll be right at home with how this system works. Using either the game branded Stratocaster (or any of the GH guitars) a fretboard scrolls down your screen with coloured dots indicating which of the corresponding buttons should be held down on your controller and strummed according to the song in question.

On easy levels you'll only be using 3 of the 5 buttons and more complicated manoeuvres such as chords, hammer-ons and pull-offs are left well out of reach until you advance towards later difficulty levels. The note lists are constructed well with otherwise quite boring songs being made fun and endearing to play.

Rockband introduces guitar solos and BRE's (big rock endings). In which if you're in possession of the rockband strat you can use the top frets without the need to stum the bar to build your points up with great ease (and posturing).

One major note of criticism however is the games implementation of hammer-ons and pull-offs.Guitar Hero 3 recently made a great improvement to this with lowering the precision needed to perform this technique and as a result improved the playability factor immensely. Here on Rockband however it still feels very loose if it will register correctly. A minor gripe which can be overcome with practise, but it still feels stuck in the past compared to where the GH series is now.

It's also worth pointing out that compared to Guitar Hero 3 the game is quite a big deal easier. While this might be good news to those that struggled even completing medium on that game, to those who finished in the top scores on expert it's a real game shortner. Expert can be compared to Hard and with the exception of some downloadable tracks all but 2 of the 45 standard songs on the disc could be 5 starred on expert first go around.

Microphone:

Using either the official Rockstar microphone, any USB mic or even the 360 headset. The vocal mode is a great addition to a game of this type. It works almost exactly the same as Sonys 'Singstar'. With the words scrolling alongside pitchbars to which the aim is to sync up as close as possible. Thankfully you don't have to sing in the same key as long as the pitch of the word is correct. Occasionally you also have to strike the microphone in-time with a tambourine or cowbell, although rare they are a fun addition and add to the illusion of being a front man in a rock group.

The problem with the singing option in the game is that as voice recognition isn't exactly at the level of the human ear (if you have ever used naturally speaking on a PC you will fully understand). You can essentially spout any old nonsense and as long as the timing and pitch is correct it will still register as correct. This makes the higher scores on the game leaderboard suspiciously illegit and the truely talented singers using the game might feel a bit cheated as a result.

This doesn't mean that it's easy though, getting high scores on even medium is a real challenge. Expert being near on impossible. In terms of a multiplayer setting, having someone able to sing vocals who might otherwise shy away from drums or guitar is a welcome option.

Drums:

The drums for most if not all people are the major selling point for the game. Note patterns fall in a similar fashion to that of the guitar with 4 drumpads and a kick pedal being the equivalent of your coloured buttons on the guitar.

The note patterns are very accurate and realistic (only dismissing very fast kick triplets) and those competent with playing drums in real life should be able to get through medium and hard modes in a breeze. Expert is a whole different story however, there you'll need second by second analysis of what's happening to prevent from failing miserably.

Luckily the practice mode for drums (as well as the other instruments) is incredibly useful with the option to slow the song down in percentages and in real time rather than just slow & slower. Compared to Rockband, it's a great improvement.

The huge almost gamebreaking problem with the drums is infact the drums themselves.

Obviously with real electronic kits costing upto £1000+ a £70 kit isn't going to be quite as efficient. The problem with Rockbands is that it's downright rubbish.

The drum pads are incredibly loud & un-sensitive (going by an EL model - the standard for the EU) and the red pad in particular (which acts as the snare) needs quite severe end user modification to function effectively on any difficulty level past easy or medium. Completing a song with 98-99% notes hit and still scoring only 3/5 stars due to the inability to keep a combo thanks to notes not registering on the kit is about as emotionally draining and annoying as a user experience gets.

America apparently have better made kits these days but having tried 3 myself now, it seems all kits being shipped in the EU have this problem. The kick pedal is also very fragile and I personally found that the spring doesn't have enough push back. Playing through on expert it felt like my ankle was doing the work of the spring most the time.

Overall it's very disappointing, if your playing in a multiplayer group where getting a perfect score isn't as important as passing then it's still fun to bash around on. But as the solo mode is score-based here it fails miserably. A huge disappointment.

Back to the game itself;

I touched on the customisation options earlier on. Unlike in Guitar Hero where you had to select from a handful of pre-rendered characters, here you really can create your own rock god/goddess. A rockshop provides the front to decide whether your character is going to be Rock, Metal or Goth and as a result offers haircuts, tattoos (which the user can layer and edit) and clothes to make this person exactly how you envision. You buy and unlock further options by earning money from completing songs in single and multiplayer career modes.

The songlist tends to make or break the game and Rockband really pisses all over Guitar Hero in terms of having the original songs on offer rather than cover versions. The online store is also regularly updated every week and has something for everyone on offer at reasonable prices.

The only criticism being that although a number of huge bands are represented it never seems to be their most famous hits that are chosen as their game song. While sometimes this is addressed in the additional downloadable track packs why they couldn't have been chosen as the on-disc song comes across a bit miserly. It's also come to the point where 3 guitar hero games previous, alot of 'big' songs have already been done per-se. A handful of tracks on Rockband have already appeared on Guitar Heroes which makes playing through them another umpteenth amount of times somewhat tedious.

The multiplayer options are outstanding. Band world tour encourages you to routinely get together with the same people in the aim of increasing fans by performing songs and preset set-lists at different difficulty levels. The only gripe about this is that there isn't an online function to recruit band members as it has to be all done locally. Fine if you have people nearby competent with the game, otherwise (like me) your fucked.

There are single player online modes such as 'Score Duel' which has each player competing for the biggest score, and 'Tug Of War' where the person who keeps a combo the longest comes out on top.

Although both fun, a game breaking problem with these is the ability for a player to quit out at any moment. Rather than register as a win for the remaining player it simply just restarts them back to the menu. Therefore. all the sore losers who four minutes through a song see no way of coming back to win simply quit out preventing the other from a victory.

Why this hasn't been patched by now is beyond me considering the amount of time it's been out in the US. Truly shocking. Other than going for achievements it makes you want to avoid these play modes altogether and aim instead at improving you position on the solo scoreboards where other peoples bad sense of sportsmanship won't ruin your game.

Overall Rockband is certainly a fun and ambitious game. Despite poor quality and expensive peripherals, easy guitar note charts and a less than stellar song listing, the improvements it still manages to make over Guitar Hero are immense. It's due to these improvements infact that Guitar Hero are now introducing drums into the next iteration of their own franchise as well as mastertracks. Until we can see how that pans out it's more than worth the money if your a fan of rhythm games or music in general to book a gig with Rockband.

Paw Rating: 4/5

Good: Numerous game options, master tracks, addition of vocals & drums to GH formula.

Bad: Difficulty swings towards the easy side, poor quality peripherals, no online band tour.

XBOX360 - REVIEW - SURFS UP

Surfs Up is unsurprisingly the game tie-in to the movie released by Sony Animation last year (2007) which features everyones current favourite Indiana Jones darling (stupid name included) Shia LaBeouf as a surfing penguin named Cody.

With this release, it would seem certain our French friends Ubisoft have obtained the license deal with Sony pictures to produce ongoing games for their animated movies. This being the second outing for them with the previous effort being the rather poor Open Season. It's a fair guess at this point the film license rapists THQ must have been outbid or instead saved their revenue pots to keep the DBZ & Spongebob rights or they no-doubt would have spunked over this in their own disgustingly feeble methods too.

Publishers aside, lets move onto the game.

Surfs up plays very loosely with the Tony Hawks game formula of skating and performing tricks for points. I say loosely as strictly the games levels aren't open world like the Pro Skater series and unlike the downhill jam games there isn't any actual racing going on either.

You play as the previously mentioned Cody as he attempts to win a prestigious surfing contest held by penguins and generally be the best of the best all while talking and behaving like some punk from the Z Boys. That's about as far as the game goes in explaining the story. If you haven't seen the film then you're shit out of luck as you won't have a clue who any of the other characters are or what they're doing. Pretty standard fair with these licensed film games I find.

Levels (of which there are roughly 20) progress in a straight forward A-B line with an ongoing 'wave' on one side of your screen which you traverse on your surfboard to build yourself momentum and launch from to perform tricks.

At the start of each run you'll be given certain conditions to meet to gain medals and effectively pass the course. Most of which are points goal based, though others include collecting hidden statues and passing through a certified number of marked gates. None of these tasks throughout the entire game are in any way challenging and you'll more than likely complete them without even trying.

To build up your run points you need to get Cody (your penguin) to perform tricks as he goes from start to finish. Unlike the complicated trick combinations of Tony Hawk or Amped you simply press 'A' or 'B' after launching from the wave and your penguin will perform a trick at random. The 'X' button is your grab and 'Y' is your super special stoke trick which builds up after performing enough basic tricks. You'll occasionally have to grind a few obstacles appearing in the water and navigate breakable barriers you can speed boost through which combined with your tricks adds to your total score.

You can unlock other characters featured in the film to surf as who all have varying attributes, some turn quicker and some build up their stoke meter quicker. In reality though it's just a different set of tricks to play with. Whoever you use, the game will still take little to no effort whatsoever to finish.

Whilst the game mechanics are incredibly simple, it's actually presented rather well aside from the occasional glitch crash and that judging certain jumps can be somewhat trial and error.
The game breaking problem is that the goals are just far too easy. It's fair enough to perhaps provide a child-like goal for a bronze medal type requirement, but I don't think it would have been overly-taxing on the end user to perhaps make the hardest run tasks require you to master the game as it were.

As it stands it's easy enough to complete and gain the full 1000 gamerscore in less than 5 hours.

This makes it completely un recommendable as a purchase and barely as a rental. Considering most pre-pubescents seem to have little to no trouble swearing their way through Halo 3's multi-player and have no problems controlling their Spartan in the ways of tea-bagging it's over simplifying for no good reason.

It's not the first time Ubisoft have dumbed down a game beyond all reasonable amounts. Open Season, TMNT, Naruto all exactly the same issues. Unless all French kids are retarded it's pretty much a given that if a licensed game is made by Ubisoft it'll be a piece of piss. Somewhat in the same way that if THQ make a licensed game it'll be a pile of crap.

So unless you're a huge fan of the film which is unlikely as Happy Feet pretty much shitted all over it at the time of release it's really quite avoidable. Which is a shame as with a little more difficulty it wouldn't have been so bad.

Paw Rating: 1/5
Good: Workable & unique game mechanic, cute penguins, easy 1000GS.

Bad: No difficulty, unfunny & vague purpose, short length.

Microsoft Spring Update Leak

Leaks, although their namesake maybe somewhat Welsh in nature are good things.

Tiny snippets of the future without having to take chances with a post-menstrual bint on a page directly opposite Striker in the Sun newspaper.

Back to the point in hand. Kotaku today report that they received an anonymous E-Mail listing the updates for the forthcoming Microsoft spring update. Rather than list all 80 of them it'd probably much easier for me to provide you with a link.

Notable updates in this list include some of the following:

8. More fields present in Personal Profile - recent achievements, interests, games, movies, links, custom section

This would have been useful last week when I was comparing my friends to see if I was the first to whoop their asses at achievements in GTA IV. Of course it goes without saying that I was, but it makes me feel more of a man to see it in person all the same.

14. Long descriptions of items on Marketplace can be scrolled using right stick.

It goes without saying how annoying this is at present. When making purchases on marketplace,

reading a description of what your getting shouldn't be a slideshow.

30. Option to donate Microsoft Points to anybody with a Windows Live ID.

A great feature, especially as most my friends are all jobless bums/students. Hopefully you can also donate them gold membership cards.

33. Disable notifications to friends of user repeatedly signing into service (set period).

Again, incredibly useful. Especially as two people on my list (who shall remain unnamed) always do this. One of them continuously signing onto XBL.COM every 10 minutes and another who insists on patching all his games one after the other, which requires a disconnect/reconnect.

There's a few other good'uns and a few rather bad ones;

39. Support for limited 'winks' that display on dashboard interface. Option to disable 'winks' and 'nudges' added.

God no. I don't want messages full of smileys and other annoying fuckery. Consoles are for gaming, not conversations.

One update I would have liked them to make would be so that peoples profiles wouldn't take a year or more to load up. Which has nothing at all to do with the size of my own *hint*.

EDIT: It has since been announced that there will be no 'spring update'. Time will tell if this means the above still won't be implemented in some shape or form.

XBOX360 - REVIEW - BIOSHOCK

Going into Bioshock uninitiated is a tough one.

Not only has it been plastered all over the gaming press both online & offline, it's also won some major acclaim from standard press due to (in most part) it's sublime graphical presentation.

Despite seemingly appearing from nowhere in-between all the heavy hitting new releases of 2007, thanks to Microsoft's substantial press machine and it being the 'spiritual successor' of System Shock the kids literally all went mad for it.

Judging by the amount of editions Bioshock was released in - one including a rather neat figurine. It'd seem an almost fool proof way to tell if a game is deemed important enough for future releases.

Back to the game itself, chances are (short of having your head stuck in the sand since early 2007) that you know at least a little about the wonders of Rapture - the games location.

While the immediate reaction to the hype is one of high expectation, a breath taking new gaming experience and essentially a benchmark to which all other 360 shooters should aspire to be. Once you've settled down with the game a few hours you start to realise that rather than just 'atmosphere' or 'gameplay' it's the unexpected surprises the game throws at you that makes the title stand up and violently grab your attention.

Depending on how much you bought into the hype surrounding the release, this factor has the unexpected side-effect of either making or severely damaging the whole experience for you.

While essentially at it's core the game is a FPS. It borrows heavily from the survival horror genre in creating suspense and atmosphere. With the assistance of the Unreal 3 engine there really is nothing quite like it out there. Rather than make you feel like an indestructible marine on a mission of destruction, the game does a seriously good job at making you feel vulnerable, confused and amazed at the situations that the game manages to throw at you.

The gameplay is a good length of around 15 hours, possibly more if you decide to explore the titles underwater city to it's full extent (collecting various items). The story itself is full of twists, turns, shocks and surprises and never seems to drag on too long. Also a great deal of character individuality is added in the form of game choices it allows you to make or not if you so decide.

Weapons you find feel suitable and while maybe not as in depth as the military based shooters out there, they still serve your needs well. The game also has a magic system (although presented as more scientific in nature) named plasmids. These also perform their job of making your progress through the game less of just a straight forward shooting grind and more a playground of your own invention.

The voice acting is of an extremely high standard as is the use of BG suspense music and sound effects to really scare the pants off you when need be. In the UK the game carries an 18+ age rating and probably with good reason. Some of the scenes you encounter can really be quite disturbing, yet in context they all fit the game environment perfectly. Little girls shoving needles into horribly deformed corpses, heck why not?

As a 360 title it's achievements are some of the best presented this year. The game rewards you for progress and for exploration & experimentation. It really is a shining example of what all games should do (instead of a blatant attempt to keep their multi-player servers busy ready for money grabbing expansion packs). Despite the huge amount of great things the game has going for it, there is some issues that detract from it's rating.

If you managed to avoid all press release videos, reviews, previews, achievement descriptions etc. and go into the Bioshock experience completely blind. I have no doubt that providing you're fairly competent with the concept of a first person perspective then this game will totally blow your mind. However, as was the case for myself. If you're aware (for example) of what abilities you'll command, what kind of people and creatures you'll face and even what moral situations you'll find yourself in. Then that's essentially the core of the games 'shock & surprise' value taken away from you.

It also contains no multi-player which while making sense also lessens it's already negligible amount of replay value. Finally, the game is also sadly far too easy. For a vast portion of the experience you'll find yourself immensely overpowered and combined with the inability to actually die-die, you can really fly through huge chunks of the game with little to no resistance.

Bad points aside however It looks impressive, it has cascades of atmosphere, plays fantastically and has a strong & competent storyline. It's a game that you should almost certainly play if not just to be able to give an opinion on the state of modern gaming and the direction it's travelling. However, (if at all possible) the less you know about the game the more you'll find that you get out it.

Paw Rating: 4/5

Good: Immersive Story, breath taking visuals, original premise, good achievement set-up.

Bad: Easy difficulty, Little replay, lacking online play.

What's New in GoW2?

New chainsaw animation - check.
New weapon - check.
New locust - check.

While almost annoyingly short in terms of actual footage, it was possible to determine a few of the new features that will be making their way into GoW2. While none of the (some would argue) more important multiplayer gameplay was shown, it seems the core mechanics of the original remain pretty much intact identical to the original.

NEW REVEALS:

The first noticeable inclusion is what looks like a new type of rifle which seems similar to the Hammerburst and Lancer yet less automatic in rate of fire. How that will fit into the world in terms of balance when a vast majority of players seem quite capable with a Longshot remains questionable.

It seems the Locust horde have feelings! A new 'hostage' shooting system seems to be now in play with the player able to pick up a kneecapped foe and use him as protection for some over-the-shoulder firing. Could be useful for when AI Dom once again hopelessly rushes into a crowd of enemies and needs a rescue.

While it could be just another nameless marine, perhaps we're seeing first glimpse of a new character? New characters such as Dizzy have been floated around as a definite new addition, could this be that man under the helmet? Or slightly less exciting is it just a Private Carbine Mk2?

As seen in the trailer released earlier in the year, here's the chainsaw duel mini game. Viscerally exciting, but could endless repetition make this less fun than it appears? Also what's the odds that a chainsaw attack will still be completely hopeless in multi-player?


Finally, Cliff Bleszinski confirms he doesn't like making money by announcing GoW2 is going to remain a Microsoft exclusive just as was earlier reported this year at GDC. Either that's the case or Microsoft have paid Epic a gross amount of money for them to stay loyal after Bungie's recent departure. How long before that amount comes out the proverbial closet do you think?

Despite all this new GoW2 news on display. Perhaps the biggest personal disappointment has to be that there's still no news on a new Jazz Jackrabbit. Come on Cliffy, do it for the kids.

Chill & Wii-lax (Until the GoW2 footage).

Yes everyone's waiting for the GoW2 footage, with such quotes as 'Made of Win!' & 'Woop! Woop!" summing up the community buzz. While gametrailers seem to have an 1/2 hour exclusivity deal, yes that's right a whole 30 minutes (as if the children aren't obsessed with re-posting everything they see on Veoh/YouTube within 30 seconds of broadcast). It'd seem everyones all excited like a group of spazzy sherbet dipping infants at the prospect of a chainsaw dueling Marcus Fenix returning in his gruff voiced, hunchbacked wonder.

To ease the stress of such a prominent evening in our lives, how about enjoying the BG music for Wii Sports in fabulous midi? Or maybe more relevant for the 360 that delightful matchmaking music menu you hear during Halo 3?

In someways I feel midi unites us all in that no matter what budget system you have, no matter white or black, rich or poor it'll always sound like guaranteed crap. That is apart from the Corneria theme from Starfox which will always be awesome (even more so in Mario Paint).

Anyway, back on topic. Enjoy this delightful countdown timer to GoW2 footage provided by 1up.com. Indeed, It's like millennium eve for us all over again with the reassurance that no matter how awesome the evening could turn out, the next day we'll all still be that little bit closer to death ♥.

GTA IV's Best Song - In Popular Agreement

After enduring the rather lacklustre radio stations of GTA IV for the past 60 hours during both it's single player campaign and multi-player race modes, it's my opinion that while not on the same level of horrors as just about any EA licensed game it was hardly a masterpiece of track selection unlike it's prequel GTA:Vice City.

Dealing with such tedium as Buju Banton & Bounty Killer's homophobic spouting dancehall nonsense on 'Massive B' and huge disappointment named 'Liberty City Hardcore'. With the surprise exception of station 'Electro-Choc' it was very rare I'd ever spend much attention to the in-vehicle stereo other than for it's fairly amusing commercials and phone-ins.

Personal opinion aside however, it seems Scott Ramsoomair over at popular gaming webcomic VGCATS hit the nail on the head when he points out easily the best song discovery comes from 'Vladivostok FM' in terms of Glukoza - "Schweine". Stupid - maybe, catchy -most definitely.

Due to the in-game ZIT! being a pain in the backside to actually use (and that the option to purchase these songs directly is reportedly only going to be available in the US when implemented) here's a YouTube video for everyone who objects to paying for music they technically already own on a DVD.

Microsoft's Wiimote - Disaster In the Mak..Shaking?

Rumour speculates that next week Microsoft will be showing off it's own wireless motion sensor controller similar to the Wii-mote.

While of-course it's no surprise Microsoft are attempting to make further inroads to the casual game market after such 'hits' as Scene-It, Live-Cam & Viva Pinata Party Animals (42k sold - ouch). It's much more likely it's decision was grounded in how much money a certain competitor still continues to rake in.

It begs belief however that as a company they'd consider this a profitable (or indeed desirable) move to achieve the desired market-share by cloning something that's made for purpose. Supermarkets offer takeaway Italian for example, but you'd be one seriously deluded individual to say that this is better than pizza from a dedicated pizzeria. This isn't even pointing out (pardon the pun) that anyone vaguely interested in motion sensor or casual games would already own a Wii at this point. It's been 2 years since it's release making this all seem an attempt to jump on a bandwagon after it's already steamrolled past breaking both your legs in the process.

They could (and will most likely) market this peripheral as a Wii with 'Next-Gen' hardware to back up it's credibility. True, fair to say the Wii's current games certainly look like utter crap. But the real reason the Wii was successful wasn't due to the systems capabilities. Nintendo's trusty stable of household name characters, imaginative game concepts and an impeccable Apple-esque promotion drive simply made a curious cat of everyone. Something that titles such as Rare's Banjo Kazooie just doesn't quite measure up against.

Perhaps Microsoft have given up trying to increase sales against it's Sony rival, having realised it's gaming divisions real chances of making a profit lay with converting more of the lucrative American casual market. In their defense there's only so many chart's you can ignore citing that the Japanese and mainland EU simply want nothing to do with your product. As a certain company would attest continuously throwing money at a dead horse doesn't mean people are going to believe that your product is something worth acquiring.

Everyone acknowledges that XBL is the best thing Microsoft has in it's favour. Rather than hemorrhage it's money on pointless peripherals, using that development money to perhaps strengthen it's rather lacking video marketplace would be a much more welcome proposition. It hasn't gone unnoticed that XBLA has also gone rather limp after a steady stream of good quality releases last year. Here's hoping that that sense prevails before the 360 sinks ever further into the quagmire of causality.

Gears Of War 2 - Gameplay Footage Premiere Expectations

As a friendly reminder, it's worth pointing out that gametrailers will be hosting the exclusive premiere of Gears Of War 2 game-play footage tomorrow (Friday night). Considering how much of a heavy-hitter the sequel to the multi million selling title should be when released this Christmas time, expectations for what fans of the original want from this game are running rampant.

A sneak peak into what Cliffy B & Epic have in store was released earlier this year at the Game Developers Conference with the infamous 'meat cube' demonstration. Here however is a list of expectations that should (and most likely will) be announced tomorrow with this latest iteration of the series;

• At least one new weapon on display, more than likely chemical/fire orientated.
• One new locust enemy character render.
• New chainsaw kill animations (similar to the GOW2 teaser trailer).
• Battlefield: Bad Company style destructible environments (as shown at GDC).
• Halo 3 style multi-player match video replay.
• Online stats similar to Bungie & Rockstar social club.
  

Although an interview with Cliffy B is supposedly coinciding with the game-play footage, it's unknown what form of announcement's he'll make concerning the game itself. Perhaps most shocking would be a release this time around on the PS3 with it's newly strengthened user-base since '06 providing suitable financial incentive?

XBOX360 - Review - Burnout Paradise

Being new to the Burnout franchise I went into this latest iteration of the series oblivious as to what to really expect from the title. While an arcade racer in nature, a run of the mill driving experience ala PGR, Forza, Sega Rally or NFS it certainly isn't. A welcome change for a machine not exactly dry on racing titles.

The big selling point of this title compared to it's predecessors is its new open world aspect, the same you would find in say a GTA or Driver game.You start driving around the games city, aptly named 'Paradise City' in a shabby wreck of a car. At your own free will you can participate in a significant number of events which are located at every crossroad and junction you pass through. While overwhelming at first, it doesn't take too long for you to acquaint yourself with the city and it's adjoining surroundings. Soon enough you'll be driving from place to place taking various shortcuts you've discovered on your travels just like it was your own local neighbourhood.

The events you'll find in Paradise city can vary between straight forward street races, point A-B survival runs with AI cars trying to force you off the road and stunt runs in which the cities natural and artificially placed obstacles or ramps can be used to string together a ludicrous score in the same way you'd link together a combo in the Devil May Cry series by following one outrageous trick after another.

In and out of these events in the games form of a free roam mode named 'freeburn' you're encouraged to crash your other computer controlled rivals off the street into what's termed a 'takedown'. By doing this you're treated to a slow motion scene of the opponents car (or indeed your own if you mess up) flipping over and breaking into a satisfying collection of pieces and wreckage. As an added incentive you also claim this taken down car to boot, adding it to the selection of cars available to drive from various junkyards around the city (which base as your garage). The crashes all happen in real time and don't interrupt the flow of action with various parts and pieces all crumpling ,breaking and shattering themselves realistically and believably.

As well as completing the games set events there's also a great deal of exploration to perform in the city. There's finding super jumps which are as the name suggests extreme versions of normal sized jumps and also billboards which usually take experimentation or plain luck to find out how to break by driving or flying straight through them.

The cars you drive while fictional in make and design all handle like real life counterparts and all of which look stunning. In no time you'll be able to flat spin, barrel roll off ramps, power-park or perform hand-break turns with quite considerable ease. All the 75 cars available to you come in one of three classes; speed, stunt and aggression. A slight turn of strategy is involved by the player deciding which car is better suited for each event in which they partake. Obviously a stunt car will make racking up a huge combo score easier for a stunt run, but put that same car into a takedown race where all the AI cars are gunning to impale you on the nearest building and it won't survive a mere gentle shunt let alone a head on collision.

Fun as the single player experience is the real meat of the game is in it's online mode. It's here that up-to 8 people via XBL can join in the same city and either engage in races, challenge events in which a task is laid out for all the drivers to complete or just simply enjoying cruising around trying to outdo each others scores in various Burnout disciplines such as who can drift the furthest or drive the longest in oncoming traffic. A neat added extra in the multi-player is the inclusion of camera support which will upload a snapshot of yourself following a take-down to your smug assailant as he drives away. It's a very clever and novel way of making use of the 360's so far under-used camera attachment and almost worth a purchase for the feature alone.

Despite Burnouts many admirable qualities there is also a handful of bad points along with the good. The camera view while low to give the game a sense of speed can sometimes obscure proceedings and more often than not you'll find yourself wrecking by misjudging a turn or vehicle pass by the smallest of possible margins. The lack of a retry feature on race & time trial events often means you'll have to spend more time driving to and from failed attempts then actually racing itself. While not game breaking it certainly adds a degree of annoyance to making any progress within the game. It could be argued that this forced attempt to make you drive from location to location makes you investigate the route and it's surroundings but I feel it should have been the players choice whether to do this or not.

Another problem is the cars. While some vehicles are obviously better than others during the course of the game, a great deal of them stutter around the mediocre mark with very little difference between any of them. Finally the game's direction indicator can be very hard to follow, especially during a race. Whilst the game encourages you to find your own route to a given location, for the first couple of hours as you're learning the city layout just getting from point A to B can be an exercise in frustration as you constantly over-run turnings that you were supposedly meant to take.

The soundtrack is also the usual hash of the EA marketing machine at work with Disturbed and Avril making their umpteenth appearance in a video game. Driving music it certainly isn't. It should be noted that Adam Ant & Faith No More was a welcome (if not bizarre) inclusion however.If you're a fan of driving games but feel after playing Forza for the simulation side and PGR for arcade thrills that there's very else left to choose from in-between. Burnout is defiantly worth a look-in for an altogether different driving experience.

While some aspects of the game could certainly do with some tweaks or alterations to lower the end users annoyance factor, overall it's an enjoyable ride well worth taking a spin.

Paw Rating: 4/5

Good: Impressive visuals, novel game-play, longevity, fun multi-player.

Bad: Occasional bad game-play design, repetition, troublesome camera views.

GTA IV - A Timeline Of Completion *SPOILERS*

Just the same as everyone else in the free world having purchased GTA IV in the early hours of Tuesday morning I sat mesmerised at my screen way into the break of dawn the following day. Difference being from the vast majority of the population that apart from the occasional annoyance of eating & sleeping that I didn't stop. By the early hours of Sunday morning I had completed the game's story mode (and obtained an 80% overall completion rating).

Here's a daily timeline from notes I kept of game events and my thoughts that coincided with them happening. I should of course mention at this point there are some HUGE SPOILERS contained within. I therefore recommend reading this only after completing the story for yourself.

A GTA IV TIMELINE

Tuesday 29Th:

Intro graphics start, familiar pictures from the pre-marketing. Like the way they subtly move from side to side, nice effect. Impressed with the theme music, seems suitable in that it's not overly biased towards one particular genre of music.

After the introduction and having met Roman, investigated the 'mansion'. The TV in particular seems to be a clever extra. Shows actually seem to play in real time according to the game clock all of which are quite amusing. The controls are somewhat difficult to get acquainted with. Nico seems to have a certain weight distribution as he walks somewhat similar to Assassins Creed.

Driving the first car in the game is a shock. Certainly very different from the previous games in the series. The cars all handle with a lot of over steer making careful/gentle breaking when taking a corner a necessity rather than an afterthought. The game itself seems to be introducing the new concepts quite proficiently towards me, for example; the idea of how the cellphone is used and works in context seems rather natural.

Introduced to the game's new Melee combat system. Not impressed with the targeting lock-on, doesn't seem any better than the previous games in this concern. After finally managing to get it selecting the person closest to me I attempted the 'counter' and so-forth. This seems quite impressive, don't see how much use it'll actually be though in real game terms.

A few missions in, starting to understand the relationship between Nico & Roman. Despite their attitude towards each other it's clear that they are both glad to be reunited with each other.

Took Michelle to the bowling alley, somewhat similar to the dates in GTA:SA but a lot more in depth. Bowling is actually considerably harder than it first appears, while not a full game in itself at least it's not just pressing a singular button so not terrible by any means. I don't think Wii Sports should be too concerned. Further intrigued by the various side activities I try my hand at darts (far too easy) and pool (far too hard). I can understand why perhaps an American audience wouldn't understand the concept of playing Darts but they could have perhaps made it a little more challenging?

The pool mini game has the basics in terms of multiple camera angles and the ability to determine where you hit the cue ball. However, it doesn't provide you with a theoretical line for any contact the cue ball might make. Therefore any shot you play is as much guesswork as it is positional strategy which makes it far harder than it should be. Cub3d seems straight forward and playable enough, very similar to the kind of puzzle game you'd find on XBLA.

Met the first of the game's 'friend characters' a Jamaican by the name of Little Jacob. Thought perhaps a little bit stereotypical but the patois seems to be quite accurate if maybe slightly overused.

Wednesday 30Th

Killing Ivan was quite exciting, liked the 'execution' you can perform. Story seems to be getting quite interesting at this point too, especially amused at the situation within Faustins house. Jumped a little when the guy with the hacksaw got shot, crazy!

Having gone to the cabaret club, some of the acts are hilariously ridiculous. Rockstar seem to have done an amazing job at portraying how bad some of these performances can be. Completed the side-mission courier jobs for Little Jacob. Very repetitive, but then as a side-mission I didn't really expect anything grandioso and there is only ten of them so it wasn't overly annoying. It does however have the side-effect of increasing his friendship with me. So much so that after a quick phone call he'll now drive to me and sell me guns out the back of his car. I take him to Clucking Bell as a thank-you. All Jamaicans like jerk chicken right?

Logged on to the game's in-built Internet at the 'Tw@ Bar' and it's astounding. Rather than feel like an extra it actually seems like a living world of it's own. Full of ads, websites related to in game events/content/spoof advertising you name it and it's there. Spent a while reading fake websites for 'Burger Shot' (Burger King) and 'MyRoom' (MySpace). Both hilarious and spot on to the bone in their satire.

Introduced to Romans friend 'Brucie'. Another stereotypical over the top GTA character but you can't help but laugh at his over enthusiasm for everything. Especially his obsession with being 'alpha male' and how he'll just suddenly burst into ridiculous exercises for no apparent reason.

Moving on in the story, having thought 'Little Jacob' was over the top. 'Real Badman' is even worse. Obviously, he's over the top for comedic effect and you can sympathise with Nico's inability to understand a word that he says. Starting to get used to the shooting system within the game. I find the cover system far too sticky however, doesn't seem as free flowing and controllable as games like Drakes Fortune or Gears Of War are. A certain annoyance with this is starting to creep into my overall game play experience.

Dimitri asking me to kill Faustin wasn't a huge surprise, could see that one building up a mile off.

The mission itself seemed a little anti-climatic, perhaps due to the ease of which you can kill Faustin's goons. The lock-on feature with the game makes it way-way to easy to kill people with head shots. Seems that the only real challenge in combat is getting yourself into some cover without the AI fucking up and placing you somewhere else in the line of fire.

Brucie introduced me to the police computers inside cop-cars, which functions as activating slightly more detailed vigilante missions from previous GTA's in the series. I also complete fetching some cars that he asks for via the in game E-mail. The models he ask for don't seem all that exotic to me but it's work easy enough done. Same as Jacob, this now means he wants to ferry me around in his helicopter, seems to take a bit too long to be as useful as Jacobs ability though.

A slightly more exciting mission occurs involving Dimitri's double-cross. A firefight with Jacob backing you up inside a warehouse is a tad more exciting then going it alone. You worry more about Jacobs condition as well being a 'friend' providing him with adequate covering fire in case he should get killed. Breaking your way through the police afterwards was also especially nerve wracking. One of the higher points of the game so far.

THURSDAY 1st

So at this point Romans had his business and apartment torched down by Dimitri and you actually feel genuinely upset for him as he places the blame on Nico during their escape drive from Hove Beach. It's not long before I'm introduced to some new characters via Romans girlfriend. These include Manny who pretends to 'down with the street' to attempt to land himself a TV-show. Elizabeta, some fat mouthy woman who seems to be in control of the areas drug trade from her scummy tower-block apartment, Playboy-X a real 'thug-playa' like character and Patrick (Packie) who just seems to be some young American-Irish chancer.

Manny is completely unlikeable as a character, but it seems Nico doesn't like him either so perhaps that's the design intention. Packie on the other hand is a complete opposite. For once in a GTA game they don't seem to have over-empathised his ethnicity and he just comes across as a genuine (albeit dodgy & violent) bloke you might make friends with yourself considering Nico's circumstances.

A particularly enjoyable mission I perform for Brucie is named 'Out Of The Closet'. Here you have to lure someone using the in-game Internet site 'Love Meet' to a date so that (obviously) you can kill them. I thought this was quite inventive and more entertaining then the usual drive to-from missions your presented with. Also entertaining was the scene where Elizabeta kills Manny & his cameraman after trying to bust in on her inevitable arrest, totally unexpected but you can't help think "thank-god for that".

I performed a few more missions for Playboy X, such as using the camera functionality on your cell phone to certify a hit which was interesting. Packie's brother from the other side of the tracks as it were (Francis) also starts to contact you offering work. You soon learn that Playboy's ex-partner in crime (Dwayne) is released and none are two happy with each other's perceived loyalty towards the other.

Also at this time it turns out that Michelle is actually an undercover spook named Kate which makes sense of why all the furniture in her house was brand new from earlier. Packie also introduces you to his family and his sister Kate who has the hots for Niko.

It's not too long before both ask you to kill the other and your split between choosing between someone who'll obviously be lucrative in terms of money or if you should do the right thing as it were and punish Playboy X for being a crappy friend towards Dwayne. I liked this idea of choice it certainly made me think which would be better for me.

Hating people who act like playa's in RL I decided to waste Playboy. It probably wasn't the smartest move in terms of earning money but I suppose I felt vindicated that I did the right thing by Dwayne. Impressive that the game's friendship system makes a choice like this feel so important.

FRIDAY 2ND

Packie and his brothers invite me along to a bank heist which is probably the most fun mission in the game so far. Throughout proceedings there's a real sense of drama (such as when Michael gets shot) and tension as you desperately run through back alleys trying to escape from the police. After what seems like an eternity I finally manage to escape back to Packies house and find myself $25k richer with my share of the loot, result!

After being introduced to the rest of Packies family, Derrick the heroin addict and Gerry the criminal psychopath I perform a few more jobs for them and Michelle/Kate's employer.

It's not too long until another well thought out enjoyable job occurs in which I have to apply for a job at a solicitors office for Francis (again through the games Internet). After going to one of Liberty Cities more upmarket clothing outlets (Perseus) dressed appropriately for the interview with a rather fetching white shirt and pink tie, I go through the pretense of the interview with the receptionist. Arriving in the office I sit there listening to Mr Goldberg blabbering on about his company before waiting for the opportune moment to stand up and blast him away mid interview, not forgetting the desperate escape afterwards. It was awesome stuff.

A bunch of Italian Mafioso characters are introduced at this point which starts a story arch about a set of stolen diamonds. One named Ray seems to have quite a violent temper and sends me on a job where I have to dress as a refuge collector driving a dump truck around. Perhaps it's just me but I find it hard to care about Ray as a character and as his jobs aren't the most interesting of the one's performed so far (a museum shoot-out being somewhat under exhilarating) it starts to bring a bit of a lull to the proceedings.

A while later, I'm asked to make another live or die decision in the way of killing Francis or Derrick from a sniper spot. Finding it very difficult to feel sorry for a junkie like Derrick even though it was possibly the saintly path to take (Francis originally being the instigator in this event after all), I decided to blow Derricks brains out with the rifle. The upside of this was now being able to call on Francis to lower my police heat level with a simple phone call. I do however wonder what Derrick would have done for me if I had shot Francis instead?

Having finished with Rays jobs (thank goodness). I'm given the supposed location of the man that Nico's been talking about trying to find all throughout the game. Having tooled myself up and picked Roman up from out apartment, I drove over there anticipating a huge gun fight to discover it's actually a flaming camp gay guy from Nico's past named Bernie.

Bernie's a great character, akin to Brucie hugely stereotypical but hilarious at the same time.

Also pleased that Nico's portrayed as sympathetic to Bernie and his lifestyle rather than outward hostility which perhaps will enlighten a few of the morons who'll no doubt play the game.

One mission of Bernies, chasing a homophobe around middle park on a 'Faggio' with him squealing on the passenger seat definatly lightened up the game somewhat.

I bury Derrick with the rest of the McCreary clan after a rather ludicrous hearse chase including a bunch of bloody thirsty Albanians in tow and decide to call it a night.

SATURDAY 3RD

I find myself settled into doing jobs for the mob. Namely a family called the Pegorino's based in Alderney. None of the jobs are too interesting, to counter the boredom I find myself escorting Packie & Kate to the Irish theme bars and getting drunk. Nico stumbling around in a stupor as the others spout nonsense and insults to him is brilliant. Finding it impossible to get towards a car let alone drive one I decide to use my mobile to call Roman for a cab. It's brilliant the way all these game mechanics can work together in situations like this.

Later on two rather fun missions occur. One involves Nico kidnapping a Don's daughter and having her trying to crash the car from the passenger seat (until Nico gives her a good ol' smack down). Watching her try to grab the wheel in the convertible and scratch at Nico is a far cry from the static in-car animations from previous games. The other job being a helicopter chase through the skyscrapers of Liberty City with Jacob shooting RPG's out the side. The city from a helicopter looks amazing, the amount of detail in the buildings and landscape is incredible.

Still finding it hard to care about the missions from Phil & Jimmy though. As they're not friends as such like other job givers it seems more of a task then actually performing a favour for them.

I'm introduced to this old guy in a hospital bed named Gravelli. Sensing the end game approaching I take on his tasks with a new vein of enthusiasm. Dressing up as a doctor and unplugging someones bedside drip inside an A&E was a highlight. Some other missions such as the shooting up the owner of a Korean restaurant and escorting a government official - not so much.

SUNDAY 4Th

As expected the end game arrives with Gravelli's information on where I can find Darko. Not Donnie Darko but apparently the real man that Nico's been searching for all this time.

I fetch Roman and head towards the airport expecting maybe a confrontation with Dimitri or at the least a shoot out with this Darko guy but instead I arrive stepping out my car to see him dumped, thrown out a van and gagged at my feet. This throws me off guard somewhat, surely this can't be the end of the game?

Darko explains he killed all your friends back in Europe for some pathetic sum of money and that he seems to be living a rather desperate life as a drug addict. Roman tries to convince you not to kill him and to let him go and once again I'm offered the option of sparing him. But I figured it'd do no harm in killing him so I shot him in the head, that'll earn him.

I get a phone call from Jimmy offering me one final job as it were. The catch is I can either have a mega payday by working again with the evil Dimitri or use this opportunity as a chance to kill him. Kate phones suggesting to kill him, Roman to forgive and complete the deal for the cash so they can all have a better life. I drove back and forth between the two points for a while. It was quite a touch choice, but I decided to go for the money. I didn't really like Kate and thought I could always kill Dimitri another time.

Needless to say Dimitri double crosses me again and me and Phil end up in a huge shoot out for inside a warehouse to retrieve the cash. After a good 20 minutes we emerge outside and I find myself a good 700k in pocket.

After driving around town unsure if the game has ended or not I receive a call from Roman inviting me to his wedding which he's not so subtly blathered on about the last couple of (in-game) days. Having driven to the church I see fat sweaty cousin Roman get hitched along with Brucie, Bernie & Jacob watching on.

All seems peachy I sit back expecting a happy ever after ending sequence and BAM.

Roman's shot, chaos everywhere. So this is the real end-game eh?!

You watch Niko morn over Roman and you feel kind of sorry for the guy as all your friends phone in their condolences, you wonder what might have happened instead if you'd killed Dimitri when given the chance?

It isn't long before Jacob decides that it's time for revenge. After both entering his car we blazed over to where Dimitri was holed up and blasted my way through an endless swarm of henchmen.

After a boat chase, jumping aboard a moving helicopter and finally plugging the bastard under the statue of happiness it's finally game-over.

I check the game progress report and notice my total game time as 42 hours. While it's true I could have cut that time considerably if for not playing the mini-games & side missions until completion. That's still 42 hours of attention that the game has provided for me.

While certainly there's negatives the positives still more than outweigh the title overall.

Now it's time for me to jump into the world of Multiplayer, but that'll be for another post..