Crimbo presents

It's almost that type of year again, Christmas.

For the record I'm a firm believer in Christmas is 25th December. People with decorations up in October? Sorry I just don't get it, surely by having them up for so long you actually detract from the 'special-ness' (not a word) of them through over exposure. Companies with really early Christmas adverts... same to you, and people counting down 'sleeps'etc from about 150. Yes that is why I stopped following you on twitter/hid your facebook posts.

Oh and the to anyone who posts 364 sleeps til Crimbo on boxing day. Words can not describe how swiftly you shall vanish from my timeline(s). That includes retweets.

But this blog isn't to rant about premature festivities (my staff Crimbo party was in November this year, and was good!), I may do that separately, in fact I'm pretty certain I will. This is about myself, me, moi. I have no idea what I want for crimbo, and times a wasting.

The good wife asked me a good while ago what I wanted her to buy for me, I didn't know, which isn't uncommon but generally I think of something (to give to Santa in case Gracie is reading this, fat bastard gets all the credit) sooner or later. But this year I'm struggling.

I'm 30 year old so if I get not much, especially after being a pain in the arse about it, I'm not going to cry. But I'm a blank. It's me and I like gadgets so something electrical is an awesome idea. Do I wanted a tablet, the Kindle Fire and Google Nexus 7 are both pretty awesome little machines (wouldn't want to carry a 10" one round) and let's face it my 3 year old netbook is feeling it's age. But would I use it? I think so, especially as I do love my kindle and either could replace/upgrade that on everything except battery life. Possibility.

I did ponder the idea of splitting a Wii U between us (and my birthday) but jesus they're so expensive, even the games are £50 (in Game who you should know my opinion of by now). Cut the price Nintendo, one of the selling points of the original wii was the accessibility and affordability, at least of the basic pack. They still bummed you hard for a remote. So probably not a great idea.

Batman blu-ray set, check.

Ummm apart from that, I could ask for a 360 game, there's a new cheap PS3 out, but I don't really want another console. Something retro? An N64 would rock, but I haven't played the SNES as much as I thought I would, so it could be a dust gatherer. The wife has a 3DS but I can't see me getting the use.

So any ideas anyone, I have gadgety friends, who may or may not read this tripe. What's good?

Batman (Part 4)

So the Dark Knight Rises has been seen and verified as awesome! No matter where the Batman film franchise goes from here, it's safe to say there are 3 more cracking films to go with the 80s/90s ones. Tom Hardy was as good a Bane as he was a Shinzon (cracking) and bar a few suspensions in belief and one cheesy bit, the film was really good, but you know that as by now you would have seen it too. You haven't? What's wrong with you, get down the cinema. Don't make me come over there...

Anyway, as I said this final post in a stupidly over long series of posts is to do with the aspect of the Batman stuff I've probably spent the most time with, games!

I can only comment on the ones I've owned/played obviously so here we go, I'll start on... SNES!

Batman Returns: It's 1993 and 16 bits rule the gaming world! Movie tie ins were frequent and shitty, but this film was great, could the game be? They took Final Fight (a classic) gave it a Batman skin and a driving stage and voila, awesome game! Good work guys!

It controlled well, looked and sounded good and was fun to play. Can't ask for much more than that! Quite fancy getting it again for my SNES now...

Batman Forever: OK, the film wasn't as good, but use essentially an updated of the game and it'll be ok, surely! Well not quite, this game was more based graphically and by the way it controls on Mortal Kombat and could be a dark, cryptic pain in the arse at times. Still looked ok, but didn't play anywhere near as well.

You'd not quite know where you could walk, enemies would seemingly take a week to put down. Not good at all, a waste after the last game. There was a Batman & Robin game, but I can only imagine the shit that was, I never had a ps1 so never played it.

I had a bit of a gap then, I did play the PS2 Batman Begins briefly and it didn't seem great although not a total write off, nut I never got going on it. Then the games and film went their own ways and we were presented with:

Batman: Arkham Asylum: Mark Hamill is an awesome Joker voice isn't he? And this is an awesome game! Giving Batman an almost open world set up to roam and complete missions in, good, giving him loads of gadgets, doing well, big selection of enemies (Ivy, Joker, Scarecrow, Croc, Bane, Riddler etc) outstanding, the Scarecrow levels being possibly the best thing I've ever played, bonza! I could carry on, for days!

Graphics were good, sound was good, voice acting was superb, the hidden puzzles hard but achievable, that's what I'm talking about! There's something quite satisfying about silently clearing a room of armed 'goons' so they never knew what hit them. 

If you wanted to pick holes, the difficulty wasn't always steady, Croc was a piece of piss for example, and the combat could be got by on through a bit of button mashing, as opposed to learning the various tricks that are available, but some would say in that way the game is what you make it.

Not played this? For shame, get on with it, and get the 3d version. Bound to be cheap by now.

Then there was:

Batman: Arkham City: I know, lets take Arkham Asylum, work of art as it is and ramp it up so it's bigger, more headline bad guys, more puzzles, more gadgets etc... ummmm ok then!

Arkham City is essentially the same as Asylum only bigger and better. The plot is superbly written, there's so much to do (maybe too much with the riddler trophies). I'm sure I've gone on about it before so I won't overly extend this blog.

Some of the same moans exist, the fighting is similar in particular. You get variable characters, this time you get to play as Bruce Wayne (yes I know), Batman, Catwoman and (in an expansion) Robin in the main story. This then becomes the exception that proves the rule that Robin spoils everything.

Going forward? There are cliffhangers in Arkham City so a 3rd game is inevitable, I for one welcome it as it'll be awesome. Just hope it's not next gen though, I'm not keen on shelling out for new hardware. 

Anyway, lets leave it there, no more Batman I promise!

RIP Game?

Or at least game as we know it now?

I've never really liked game, over the time they've employed enough dodgy practises and sales techniques that I dislike to push them into 'only if I have too' territory. E.g. going to supermarkets and buying their special offers to then sell on in their own store, apparently to give the customers 'choice', I'm pretty sure the customers would rather pay the lower price to be honest...

Buying competitors instead of competing with them, in essence they turned gamestation into a game with a different colour scheme. But left the occasionally questionable for public music.

They're also great users of the sell you extra stuff at checkout and send staff to ambush you in the aisles to offer 'assistance', both piss me off. One visit to the Merthyr Tydfil Retail Park Game resulted in every member of staff bar one in the store approaching me, not a big store. When the last one asked, 'anything in particular you're looking for?' I just shook my head and left.

They can't compete with larger stores (supermarkets, argos etc) on prices and that's not shocking due to the buying power they have. But then mostly miss the chance to offer a specialist service that the supermarket couldn't. Game staff are a split between people who generally think they know all there is to know, and some of them get ratty when you contradict them, e.g. one of them was blabbing about Gears of War and how it was an 360 exclusive, a pointless sale attempt as I had it already! But playing along I pointed out it's not, there's also a windows version at which point I  was told in a nicer worded manner, don't be so daft, I work in game so I know. So I wandered over to the PC section, picked it up and showed him...

While some are clueless and they've taken the job as 'shop assistant' and didn't mind where it was. Which is fine, but I do find it quite amusing when they go into pre rehearsed slightly awkward sales patter about games they'll never play.

I've heard them sell over age games to parents of kids as 'all his friends will have it', I've heard them loudly bad mouth other stores, games companies etc loudly in store (Unsurprisingly EA was the latest I heard last weekend where the checkout staff proclaimed, 'No EA are just greedy'. Nothing to do with you're credit rating then and maybe EA realising they may not get paid here? Dick. What's the line now 'EA, Activision, Nintendo, Microsoft, yeah they're all just greedy'?)

They've given me crap deals on trade ins to then resell them at (one extreme) ten times the value. Blockbuster, HMV or CEX are the place to trade.

But they're not all bad, they did have reasonable special offers on times, and I must admit to visiting their 'let's pay the rent' fire sale that's currently going on and when they have an admin stock clearance I'll visit again. Some of the staff are ok, annoying, but that's following orders, plus I'd never wish anyone to lose their job regardless of skill level at it, but administration is looking inevitable.

But going forward, it may become a better shop as a result, Walmart apparently fancy it, with ASDA buying power, it may well be able to complete with the other supermarkets and give itself a chance, even though the ASDA preowned section is rubbish!

I'll miss Game in a way, it was a good place to look at what was out before going to Tesco to get it a fiver cheaper!

Homefront

About E3 time last year I noticed a trailer for a game I'd only heard vague things about before. The trailer was a back story trailer and used very believable plot points to eventually develop the story into the Korean invasion of America. The trailer was excellent and the story got my attention from the outset, I had high hopes for the game! I thought if narrative of this standard could be maintained through this game, and could be this interesting, it could help supplement what is getting to be a very tired genre.

As things got closer to the release I began to hear very mixed things about the gameplay. Formulaic, uninteresting were just some of the words that were banded about, and in the end I didn't end up buying it. But thankfully due to a work friend lending me his copy I did get the chance to play it.

Well, that was a lucky escape! Yes the plot is still good, but the game... not so good. Where to start? The characters, well each is a stereotype. Only the woman ever shows any real emotion (well a man wouldn't would they) The dialogue is dreadful, not so much the cut scenes, but the 'on the move' dialogue is a few lines repeated over and over again. The objectives generally switch between 1) Follow Connor 2) Shoot stuff 3) Follow Connor to next  laid on set piece 4) shoot more shit, and become tiresome quite quickly.

It follows the COD blueprint of throwing in sniper levels and vehicles, but this is the best and worst of the game. The sniper sections are reasonable enough, as good as it gets anyway, but the vehicles, especially the shocking helicopter level, are beyond poor. The helicopter is painfully difficult to control and about as much fun as waxing (or so I'm told...).

The enemies are all the same pretty much to look at, (except for 1 level where they're different, but still the same as each other) but they die randomly. I killed one guy with 2 to the kneecap, but his mate took 3 or 4 to the head... that does not make sense.Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!

In generally the single player is a let down, a horrible disappointment, but at least it was over quick, what was that 4, 4.5 hours? Not allot of bang for ya buck and ended with what can only be described as a weak ass ending, no spoilers here though.

Now throw in the traditional graphical glitches, corpses falling through walls and the like.

I've not tried the multiplayer, I've no inclination too either, I have Bad Company 2 if I wanted that.

Such a pity, could have been amazing, Portal 2 will be amazing. 1 more week!