Weekly update – 15 of 52

The warriors of the Wei kingdom have returned for more button mashing

Welcome once again brave traveller, to the latest instalment in my weekly chronicles of 2011. Here we are in the fifteenth week, and fast approaching a hectic period of new video game releases. Fortunately though, those of you who live in the UK also have a spate of public holidays coming up, so no better time to nestle down and enjoy some gaming. There’s also a big wedding happening, but that’s not the sort of thing I’ll be talking about here. Continue reading →

Game Over – Dead Rising 2

My twelfth completed game of 2011 is Dead Rising 2 from Capcom and Blue Castle Games.

When Frank West was introduced to the world, no-one could have been more excited by his zombie-bashing escapades than yours truly. The prospect of running around an enclosed play area with literally hundreds of weapons at your disposal to use against the shuffling horde was enough to convince me to pick up my first Xbox 360 back in 2006. Despite discovering the truth behind the zombie outbreak, it was inevitable that the story would continue in some shape or form.

Taking place five years later, you get to play as Chuck Greene, a contestant in a Running Man-esque tv show, hoping to win the prize money that will allow him to purchase Zombrex – the drug he needs to keep his daughter from turning into a zombie. All hell breaks loose and the zombies once more maraud the streets, with Chuck being framed as the perpetrator. He’s got 72 hours to clear his name, keep his daughter alive, rescue survivors, incapacitate psychopaths and avoid becoming zombie chow.

Of course, he’s not completely helpless, being trapped in a casino/retail complex means you have even more weapons to choose from than Frank did, and also the ability to combine items to create unthinkable tools of destruction. Gaffer tape some knives to a pair of boxing gloves and you’ve got yourself a pair of home-made, snikkety snikt Wolverine claws. Or how about combining a sledgehammer and a fire axe to create The Defiler, guaranteed to make your enemy stay down.

And that’s just the beginning, this game quite literally is full to the brim of things to see and do, including a two player co-operative mode, and for the first time in a while I’ve actually found myself eager to carry on playing even though I’ve completed the storyline. Until I pick up a copy of my own though (this was a Lovefilm rental), I’ll have to get my zombie-slaying kicks by playing the downloadable epilogue – Case West.

Weekly update – 14 of 52

The sun has got his hat on, hip hip hip hooray...

If you’re reading this then it means that the sun has gone down and you are ready to give your flambéed skin a chance to heal and enjoy some relaxing internet-based words. If the sun is still out there – quickly get out before it destroys all your stuff! Good, now that we’ve established the correct order of things, it’s time to regale you with one of my weekly tales of living…

Continue reading →

Game Over – Kinectimals

My eleventh completed game of 2011 is Kinectimals from Frontier Developments.

Those of you who know me know that I don’t have any children and were probably wondering what on earth drove me to making this game a “day 1 purchase” back in November when Kinect was released. It wasn’t the game concept, as to me this just looked like a “next-gen” Nintendogs clone. It wasn’t the fact that it was exclusively for Kinect, as I had already snagged some of the other launch titles anyway. It was all thanks to a video posted on Kotaku by Stephen Totilo.

I’m not sure if Frontier intended the inclusion of Halo-themed unlockables to attract “core gamers” like myself, but it certainly worked! As it turns out, the game was actually surprisingly enjoyable, if a little simplistic and repetitive – it is intended for children though, so I can’t really use these as fault points. There was certainly enough to keep me interested until the end, even if it did take me a while (insert obligatory moving furniture to play Kinect gripe here).

For the benefit of anyone this phenomena has passed by; the game sees you become an explorer of a mysterious island, inhabited by the Kinectimals – juvenile big cats – all eager to help you explore and play games with the many unlockable toys in the game. These toys range from footballs, Frisbees, remote controlled cars, skipping ropes and water pistols. You can also teach the animals tricks using motion and voice commands, and participate in a serious of challenging events such as assault courses and funfair-esque hoopla, shooting and coconut shy games.

Even though it had a few performance issues with limb tracking, as well as a difficult to access multiplayer mode, I can see this game being something pretty wondrous for children to play. It’s certainly proved to be one of the better launch titles for Kinect and I can heartily recommend it, even to “grown ups”, after all we’re all still kids at heart, right?

Weekly update – 13 of 52

Everyone's been on a loser cruiser like this

Hello my lovelies, on this day of japery and hi-jinks which concludes what has been an incredibly hectic week for me. With two of the developers away on a course, things at work have been absolutely mental, so I’m glad to get my feet up and prepare for a nice chilled out weekend in front of a glowing rectangle or two. While you’re here, let me chew your ear off about the things that occurred during the last week of March 2011…

Continue reading →