Catch22: Last week I got bored and decided to go see if there had been any more recent games bumped to freeware by their makers. While perusing the lists of flop, bug ridden or poorly timed release titles of yesteryear I bumped into this gem. Now Full Spectrum Warrior was a title I had heard about but it had been hidden in the combat-sim saturated market at the time so I didn’t really give it a shot. It’s been released as an ad supported game and at a paltry 1.6 gig download I thought why not. I mean, i do like free.

After doing some reading while the install was chugging away I discovered that Full Spectrum Warrior was originally developed for the US Army as a training tool. Its purpose was to prepare soldiers and potential recruits (that’s you btw) for different types of combat operations. The game was later criticized for being unrealistic and not useful its intended purpose.

Brushing aside the whole propaganda thing, I was getting super excited with visions of the old 2003 release run like a game possessed on my nvidia9500. In saying that, I was rudely surprised at the incredibly choppy introduction and rubbish frame rate it gave me in return for me birthing it to my pc. After several minutes scouring forum posts full of screaming fools I discovered that it didn’t seem to like running smoothly while connected to the internet. Of course.. it couldn’t have anything to do with something logical like graphic settings – but hey, stranger things have happened. It actually did fix the problems so who knows what devious background apps were attempting to do. I mean I haven’t been dragged out of my house by burly Army recruiters so I’m presuming all is well.

The game-play is pretty different to most tactical combat sims I’ve encountered. Older titles like Rainbow 6 & Hidden & Dangerous had a map which you could plot waypoints for various squads and then jump in the action like a pro and show the bots how a real soldier swings.  FSW didn’t seem to allow you play in a FPS sense but rather delegated you to commands for one of your two combat groups. Tell them where to run, what direction to point their guns and when to take cover. It really does make you feel like an armchair commando telling everyone what to do and not having to do it yourself.

I got to work moving squad by squad time through the first stage, frustratingly having to tell the soldiers to shoot at enemies and then watch them pathetically spray bullets vaguely in the right direction like retarded children trying to hose down a car. One particular enemy combatant had cleverly hidden behind a dumpster which may have well have been a solid 20 foot high concrete bunker to my rather inept soldiers. I was really looking forward to a mission containing a broad-side of a barn to really test how bad they were at aiming.

I found moving up around cover it was difficult to get all four squad members to engage in the firefights. The only real way around it was to edge them out form cover and watch the rather futile bullet exchange take place. Your soldiers occasionally mutter phrases like “standing in the open, isn’t that what we were trained not to do?”. Well if they knew not to stand in the open why do they bother doing it? I mean if their standards of ‘cover’ are anything remotely like their aiming prowess then I think me plonking them in the open is probably to their benefit.

The next area of the map contained multiple targets all hiding behind cars. My heart sank thinking back to the dumpster. How on earth would they handle this tactical minefield? The answer was “grenades”. Lots of them. Sadly the grenades run out and fighting becomes very staggered. I also found the time taken to switch between squads was too slow for my liking. Your players will constantly be dropped by enemy fire and trying to drag them out of harms way will get the rest of the squad dead pretty quick.

Summing up, I wasn’t a great fan and was hoping more from this game. Maybe I was mislead by the title. Perhaps it alludes to the full spectrum of things you have to tell your halfwit soldiers to do (or not to do in the case of landmines and wall sockets). I might give it another go at a later date to try find out why it got so many rave reviews back in the day. Until then I’m going to tag it with a Meh.

Decibelle:

What sets this game apart from others is that it maintains a cute façade while cramming in a host of variables to be poked, prodded, and tweaked in the quest for a optimum hospital performance.

In this case you assume the role of an up-and-coming manager, building and raising a succession of empty hospitals to the giddy heights of medical elitism.  The screen view is simple and colourful isometric grid, with tiny characters parading a variety of quirky ailments.

Where theme hospital really shines is cute animations which depict everything from surgeons scrubbing up, to nurses administering cures, to patients projectile vomiting in the hallways.  Each ailment also has an associated animated cure, which are a fascination to watch.  Include the continual streams of foot-traffic through the hallways and the occasional scamper of little mice, and you have a veritable candy store for the eyes!

To start your tenure at each hospital, you are given a series of goals which may include curing patients, increasing hospital value, increasing bank balance, and maintaining reputation.  While fulfilling these criteria in the earlier levels is easy, the number of variable increases rapidly to quickly challenge players of all levels.

Rooms must be built to house key equipment, and each of the rooms have a pre-defined minimum size.  My only criticism is that in some cases the room sizes are luxuriously bigger than the equipment they need to house.   Fabulous layouts can be thwarted by a single psychiatrist demanding an office worthy of a hotel lobby. On the flipside, nurses are able to attend a small army of patients in a single ward by cramming in extra beds.

Health inspectors and VIPs love visiting your hospital, with reputation and money boosts if they are suitably impressed.   The VIPs also award prizes for an odd blend of achievements (or not), which serve as a useful way to judge the success of your playing style.  All this is punctuated by the endearing service announcements, ever so politely requesting patients not to die in the corridors.

And it has a point!  Nothing irks me more than playing for days at a time, with the sad knowledge that it has achieved absolutely nothing (did someone say Sims?). Theme Hospital deftly avoids this conundrum by giving us goal-oriented players short, medium, and long term progress tracking, like real time stats and comparisons against competing hospitals, and quarterly awards to recognise good or bad performance, and ethics (or lack thereof).

Eventually, you will either triumph over the other players, or tear your hair out battling a succession of rat plagues, epidemics, walk-outs, and chronic debt (from the jolly old bank manager).  With each new hospital your playing piece moves around a vintage game board, which provides an overall demonstration of your long-term progress throughout the game.

My game repeatedly crashes at the fourth or fifth hospital, due more to the age of the game (I hope) than any technical failing. Despite this, I had many a fun filled hour healing and dealing, and give it a hearty thumbs up!

Catch22:

The basic gameplay (if you can call it that) its to navigate some sort of confused cartoon worm-bug-thing calle BOY around a small sandbox level. You can stretch yourself out and control both ends of the worm to travel different directions which starts to make basic navigation a challenge. You can eat eat random  ingame objects and poop them out.. if you want. You can gain points by stretching lots and, for those who haven’t deleted the game by this point, submit them online to grow a GIRL character worm-bug-thing. The GIRL worm will continue to grow as long as players keep submitting their scores and new levels to wiggle around aimlessly will be unlocked. Last count it had reached the moon and was on its way to mars. If it does make it to mars – I will have officially lost faith in humankind.

Basically there’s no real level progression and no incentive to keep playing unless you are bored out of your brain with every other game ever published.

I understand Keita Takahashi made the very successful Katamari for PS2 as a statement about consumerism. I can see links to this game as it contains a very pointless consumption of objects and a pretty meaningless existence. If this is the case then theres a certain irony that people have wasted their money on this title

As i said, Noby Noby Boy is barely a game. I’ve had interactive screen-savers more entertaining than this. To be honest i think the only entertainment derived from this game is for Namco who are making money off a title that took all of a day to develop.

The 10 mins it took to write this review is probably longer than I could keep playing Noby Noby Boy without wanting to top myself.

Felix: ‘Potential’.

It’s a strange term isn’t it? Depending on context, it can have a wide range of meanings. With a positive slant, it could imply future promise. With a negative slant – ‘could have, would have, should have’.
‘Potential’ is the word that immediately came to mind when I heard that the creator of Katamari was making a new game. I watched the trailer, didn’t really understand what was going on, but bloggers were saying nice things, plus – I love Katamari, and it’s only $7, right? Might as well go for it.

I should have trusted my gut.

A lot of this review could be very similar to catch22’s. To spare you the annoyance of reading the same criticisms twice, scroll back up and read his article now. I’ll wait here.

Finished? Good.

Noby Noby Boy isn’t a game. It’s so much less than that.
See, games have a purpose. They have a story. They have aims, goals, obstacles. They are an artifical construct, which provides you with a sense of achievement for meeting objectives.

NNB is the antithesis of this. Every so often you’ll stop and think to yourself, “Why am I playing this?”. You won’t be able to come up with an answer. For any game, even shit ones, this should never happen.

I’m going to go back to the idea of ‘potential’ for a second. I love the whole indirect-multiplayer thing that NNB has going on, with all players reporting back to the same GIRL. It’s a very clever idea. Everyone, just by playing the game, helps to unlock more game content for everyone? Marvellous. Lots of ‘potential’ there. Unforunately, the game itself isn’t enough to support the high concept. It relies upon the fact that thousands of people will be playing the game. The fact is, they don’t want to play it. It’s boring. I’m not the least bit surprised that player numbers are in freefall.

I’m likely being a bit harsh on this game, because of some misguided sense of betrayal. As a huge fan of the Katamari games, I figured that NNB would be a sure thing. And y’know, a lot of people do find a sort of zen-enjoyment from playing this game. Personally, I don’t see it. I play it – but I can’t find the fun. There’s the slightest glimmer of hope there, but a game worth spending your money on? No.

In fact, I’m going to delete it now.

Catch22:

Felix:

Felix:

I found a bit of spare time this afternoon, after work. What did I do with it? I played LittleBigPlanet. A game which, at the time of writing, is about 6 months old. I picked it up at launch, and played it then. I finished the main story levels months ago, but continued playing to collect the items I’d missed. And half a year later, by which time most other games would be collecting dust, LBP is still releasing patches, downloadable content, and filling up slots in my gaming schedule.

Stripped back, LBP is essentially a platformer with a cute mascot. For a significant slice of the gaming population, this is all LBP will ever be. “It’s not doing anything that hasn’t been done before”, “the controls are slippy”, “having three planes is stupid and frustrating”, “the English voiceover dude is cool”.

It’s their loss. They’ve completely missed the point of the game. Let them go back to their brainless macho FPS bullshit.
And for the record, his name is Stephen Fry. Look up his Twitter.

The core gameplay is divided into three distinct segments, defined by LBP’s motto – Play, Create, Share.

The Play portion is straightforward – finish the level, unlock the next one. Media Molecule (the developers) have built the game around several distinctly-themed worlds to travel through – the first of which is mostly a tutorial – easing you into the dynamics of the controls. After that you’ll find yourself in Africa, Asia, India, even Mexico – each with its own style and nuances. The difficult curve is relatively graceful – until the end – stupid Bunker level.

As an aside to the main story levels, there are also challenge levels – stay alive for as long as you can, earn as many points as you can within a timeslot – things like that just to mix it up a bit. Personally, I didn’t find them interesting really, and would have preferred them to concentrate on making more actual levels. The main story levels have a certain quality and atmosphere to them that the challenge levels – by necessity – strips away. Most people I know who have played to the end of LBP’s story mode exclaim “Is that it?”. Happy, but wanting more.

For the completionists amongst us – scattered throughout the levels are literally hundreds prize bubbles to collect. Know that lil buzz you get when you earn a trophy/achievement in a game? Yep – you’ll get that feeling every single time (LBP also has trophies, which are seperate from the prize bubbles here). Unfortunately, once you’ve collected something once, it turns into a big version of the points bubble, and it’s not such a big deal anymore in subsequent runthroughs. Stickers, decorations, costumes and materials – however – once collected can then be used within levels you build yourself.

Which brings me to the next part of LBP – Create.
Included with the game are a bunch tutorials and tools you need to create your own levels. The more items you’ve unlocked during the game, the more materials are available for you to choose from. It is seriously overwhelming – especially if you finished the main story levels before you started building your own, like I did. The developers have been quick to point out that all its own levels are built using the very same tools that they provide – highlighting the fact that quality is possible if you have the patience and inspiration.

This is probably the point in the game where you’ll most notice LBP’s cutesy graphical style. You can spend hours choosing between one spongy block pattern and another (and probably just end up using the default one), but those designers with a bit of nous will publish level as sophisticated as the ones MM made themselves.

Publishing your levels is how your level is Shared with the rest of the LBP community.
I remember reading an article on Kotaku the other day, apparently there have been over 700 000 levels published so far. Unfortunately, most of them are utter shite. Manage to trawl past them, and you can find some absolutely amazing stuff. Each user will have their own take on LBP, be it focusing on an interesting story, quirky game dynamic, or just making you think “How the fuck did they do that?” (check out the LBP Contra remake, Libidius – a space shooter!, or the guy who’s made a fully functional mechanical calculator).

Levels are sorted using both a hearts (essentially, favourites) and a rating system (1-5 stars). It’s not perfect, but it mostly serves the purpose of helping good levels bubble to the top of the pile. You’re also able to heart creators, if you find a particular author whose work you appreciate. It’s odd though, apart from a simple commenting system, this is about the extent of community that MM have built into the game itself. Strange, for a game that is so focused on sharing and multiplayer.

And multiplayer is where LBP really shines. Games are a fantastic mishmash of both cooperative and competitive fun (well, levels are mostly meant to be coop, but slapping a friend into a fire bit never stops being hilarious). You can play any level with 1-4 players (online, local, or any mix of the two). Local multiplayer is preferred – online play is built on a P2P system – so your game lags as much as the player with the worst connection. A few levels actually have sections that can only be accessed with 2-4 players – so break out those dualshocks!

So what makes LBP so alluring, and enjoyable to play?
To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve worked it out. But it’s bound to have something to do with its simplicity, accessabiliy, and ability to continuously amaze. The Play platforming-part is a well trodden path (see Mario, Yoshi, et. al.), so I figure it’s the Create and Share sections that are setting LBP apart. Media Molecule have essentially bundled a toolkit and tutorial, and said ‘Do whatever you can’. And there are some REALLY creative people out there.

Unfortunately, it’s more than likely that the first few levels you make will be shit. There’s a good reason why most of the user levels are shit. The tools can be fiddly – especially if you don’t know what you’re doing yet – and won’t react in the way that you expect them to. You’ll notice that your levels don’t nearly have the depth that the MM-created ones do. This is the point where LBP players get divided into three categories:

• Those who can’t make good levels, and stop;
• Those who can’t make good levels, but make levels regardless; and
• Those who can make good levels.

There’s an inherent problem that MM seem to have overlooked – they’ve made the tools available, provided a platform where anyone can be a designer – but the thing is – most gamers aren’t good game designers.
It’s the same reason people have jobs. People specialise. A dentist is better at checking my teeth than I, despite the fact that I’ve spent a fair few years brushing and eating with them. In contrast, a lot of gamers seem to have this notion that they play a lot of games, they’d be really good at making them. Hate to burst your bubble, but the reality is – the mere fact that I drink a lot of milk doesn’t guarantee I’d be a very good cow.

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s a whole bunch of tutorials to help you make good levels – it’s not the tool that’s the problem. You just need a touch of inspiration and creativity. But waiting until it hits would go against MM’s “Everyone can create” agenda. A lot of the trophies available in LBP are to do with creating and sharing levels – which provides significant incentive to build – but perverse incentives are lurking as well. A large number of the most popular and most played user levels you’ll come across are not designed for the purposes of entertainment – but only to earn trophies for the author or player. I should disclose – playing these sorts of levels is how I earned a couple of trophies for myself – but I felt dirty doing it, like I was cheating the game out of its intentions. I’ll bet there are thousands of quality, entertaining levels out there which are buried under the mass of “Play ths so I getz my trophies!” crap.

Sorting though the trash levels wouldn’t be such a big deal, but the filtering systems available (hearts and ratings) to do so are basic, and don’t scale well. Most people have taken the hint, and developed LBP communities external to the game – in order to advertise and promote their levels. It seems to me like a huge missed opportunity here to develop a strong in-game (or perhaps, in PlayStation HOME) community.

The caveat to these complaints is that LBP is still in development. It’s continuously improving, monitoring LBP community forums, releasing patches – in this way it’s got a very WoW kind of a feel to it (not that I’ve played WoW). Personally, I much prefer the microtransaction business model to the subscription – people get to choose which pieces of DLC they want, devs get revenue for continued development, as well as an indication of what kind of things the community are after, and are willing to pay for.

Oh, DLC – almost forgot to mention it. A LOT has been released. Costumes, mini-packs (stickers and decorations), level packs. Some are free, some are not. You might as well download the free stuff. Because of how the level sharing works, it’s already patched into your game – grabbing it from the store just unlocks it so you can use it in your game.
But whatever you do, buy the Metal Gear Solid level pack. I don’t care if you’re morally against DLC. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never heard of Metal Gear Solid. They’re a set of a new LBP levels, created by MM (in the style of MGS, obviously) – and they are fantastic. At the very least, you get more trophies to earn, and the PAINTINATOR! (I’ll let you discover what that is for yourself)

I’d like to think that most gamers out there will play LBP, and see it for what it really is. They’ll actually play the creation tutorials, and try to build a level of their own. They’ll publish their levels out to the PSN, and play levels that other people have made. They’ll read forums, create communities, and keep going back to the story levels to finally score the coveted ‘Collected all prize bubbles’ trophy. They’ll spread the word about the amazing, the quality, the stunning user-made levels, and try to bury the crappy ones. Commit to LBP, and it will reward you in droves. You’ll become one of the screaming fanbois, nagging Media Molecule to hurry up and release more DLC.

Don’t feel bad if you’ve missed the hype on this one. Sony didn’t do nearly enough to support what was meant to be ‘the new face of PlayStation’. Releasing a new IP in the bloated November window, with a marketing budget that couldn’t buy a PS3? That’s crap, Sony. Media Molecule handed you a gem, and you might as well have spat on it.

Speaking of which, I’m going to go back and polish my level.

PEWPEW!

Catch22:

Now if you’re like me you would have been a little MMO-curious occasionally and trialed some other games on the market just on the off-chance you could save some cash for other things.. like food. A ten day trial here – a referred friend there. Perhaps even a short fling with one of the cheaper, nastier free-to-play MMO’s in the shady corners of the net. You know they aren’t a good idea, your friends have all warned you about them… full of advertisements, spy-ware, gold farmers and god knows what else. But you take the chance regardless and find yourself walking away from the experience with the computer equivalent of crabs and a good deal of guilt.

Well I’m glad to say that there’s now an alternative for all you thrifty, money-conscious, casual gamers – Runes of Magic. This game has only just been released from beta so for the time being I’m doing a ‘first impressions’ rather than a full review.  I’ll give it a few weeks to sort out any teething problems and then get stuck into it.

Many games on the market borrow a clever idea or two off a successful predecessor. Then there’s Runes of Magic which has gone a step further and unashamedly cloned Wow. Ok, that’s probably a bit harsh but there’s no denying its many striking similarities (even through to the website itself).  But really, who can blame them. Wow has dominated the MMORPG playing field for at least a good four years  successfully working out how to attract and keep players.

Runes of Magic is going for a different money-making approach though. Instead of the standard subscription model, they’ve opted for a second purchasable in-game currency – diamonds. Diamonds can be purchased for a range of uses such as premium weapons, item modifications, upgrades, quest helpers and mounts. Most of these things you can actually work for by playing the game and doing repeatable quests but the developers are counting on the lazy and power-hungry players to fill their coffers. The important thing to note is you can play this game in its current state without paying any fees. Also to add to your peace of mind, you can sign up to play without even needing to give them any personal information.

The in-game models are very similar to wow with the exception of some great character customization options which I’ll talk about shortly. The overall game graphics are average but bearable on the highest resolution. It has the usual graphics options so you can tweak elements like terrain view distance, texture sliders and bloom options to cater for a range of PC’s. The spell casting effects and character animations are also not too bad. Basically there’s nothing that really detracts from the gaming experience apart from the music stopping occasionally which I’m sure will be sorted out in subsequent patches.

Although there’s only one playable race at the moment, you can select from a wide range of preset faces and hairstyles along with another bunch of sliders to modify your body shape. You can change the size of your hands, feet, head, height and even your head size. I really like how it allows you to create such a unique character as it does enhance your gaming experience and social interactions.

The game release seems quite stable and the interface is familiar to anyone who’s played wow. There are some small features which add to the game play such as quest givers appearing on your world map and an auto-move function which saves you having to trek your toon across the zone manually (plenty of time now for bio breaks and grabbing food). There are a few class balance issue with Scouts, warriors and possibly a oversight with the healing calculations that are being talked about on the forums. Of course you get the usual “where does my class fit into a raid’ moaning that’s plagued MMO’s since time began..

Runes of Magic appears to be pretty ‘casual gamer’ friendly with the inclusion of some small dungeons but I haven’t had a chance to check these out yet. All in all the developers have got a good hook with the free-to-play model and a solid release with lots of content to back it up. Now it’s just a matter of time to see if they are able to iron out the class bugs overlooked in the beta and keep their current community happy.

Just to fill you in, Fallout is set in an alternate history where humanity is plagued by war. A select few enter large fallout shelters just before a nuclear holocaust and are locked away in until it is safe to return to their battered world. These vault dwellers emerge 25 years later to find that others had survived in the radioactive wastelands. These survivors include mutants, gangs of scavengers, misguided robots and armor-wearing vigilantes. Hilarity ensues…

The original titles were turn-based strategy games which utilized a system of action points you could allocate to moving and shooting much like the early Jagged Alliance and UFO series. The whole game is set in retro 50’s style with decor and music to boot. You even get to lug around your dial-faced ‘Pipboy’ wrist computer which has everything from your vital signs to the nearest radio station.

Now I nearly blew a fuse when I heard Bethesda were opting for a new FPS approach for F3. “Heathens!”, I yelled. How could they do it to us? Taking it from its original top-view, turn-based strategy format and making it into a generic shooter would essentially destroy everything that made it unique. Despite my many reservations I purchased F3 and prepared myself for the worst.

Controlwise, F3 is very much like Bethesda’s earlier title Oblivion with the added bonus of the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (VATS). VATS essentially allows you to pause the game mid fight and allocate points to targetting particular enemies and body locations. You can also us the system to melee and throw grenades which is very handy when there’s a bunch of fighting going on.

Character customization throughout the game really does allow you to play how you want to play. You can alter many aspects including physical attributes, crafting skills, weapon specialization, character ‘Perks’ and even your Karma level alowing you to play good or evil.

As an example, my first foray into the wastelands I decked myself out in the best power armor I could find and carried a tonne of guns around everywhere. Sadly though, I found that I’d approach most situations in a predictable way i.e. just shoot the hell out of everything I came across. I’d always feel a little bad when I hopped off a mountain of corpses only to find some magical switch in a side room that did something really cool. I don’t like to spoil plot elements but releasing a hoard of pissed off zombies in a crowded hotel is always good for a chuckle.

Keeping this in mind I created a second ‘Geek’ character and intentionally gimped him for a challenge. I started by lowering most of his stats and just increased my intelligence/agility – only allowing wearing spectacles and flimsy vault suits. The game plan was to basically run away from anything that could hurt me (a scorpion and robot conga line is pretty amusing as you’re legging it through the wastes) and find more interesting ways to complete the objectives. Because my strength was so low I had to be selective about what I scavenged but, on the flip side, as my speechcraft and science were so high I could make heaps of money without having to play pack-mule. I found this second character build to be much more enjoyable as the Fallout 3, like Oblivion, does well to provide multiple ways to achieve goals. My suggestion is to play a character type that you wouldn’t normally use and dont stress too much about gear – hell, my roommate did most of the game in sexy sleepwear and the AntAgonist suit.

Now I have to say I dont mind violent games but F3 is pretty graphic. I took the ‘Bloody-Mess’ perk as it was kind of funny in Fallout 1 but it was pretty over the top in F3. I mean, you shoot a guy in the head and his arms and legs fall off. It kind of removes you from the game a little when you’re like “wtf” after every round of combat. I’m no biology expert but i’m pretty sure the neckbone’s not connected to the knee bone. They should have had a gore level slider for the younger people ranging from “Rainbows & Kittens” to “Intestine Sprinkler”. But in their defense, I picked that Perk so I had it coming. But you can judge for yourself in the following vid (and yeah, warning you there’s some graphic violence):

As far as graphics go you can always count on Bethesda studios to do a decent job. The stunning landscapes and music work well to draw you into this wasteland world. The many small environment dioramas created by the level designers really do add to the story. Even though multi-player games have an added social value there is no denying that this single player gaming experience is a bucket of fun.

Fallout 3 is simply a great game. I think Bethesda did very well in keeping the turn-based charm of the series with the VATS system and i’m so glad it didn’t become a generic first person shooter. I’m giving Fallout 3 a resounding PEWPEW.

Maroo:

Story goes so far: you (Drake) are the rugged and handsome treasure hunter following clues left by your long dead ancestor, none other than the legendary explorer Sir Francis Drake, which leads you to the final resting place of his… gasp… empty coffin!?! Well I was surprised… However, this was obviously just as Drake suspected. Retrieving the journal of old Drake leads you on your quest for the elusive lost golden city of El Dorado.

From here the game takes you through similar game play experiences involving shooting, hiding behind walls and shooting, climbing, leaping, climbing and leaping, climbing and shooting, jet skiing, jet skiing and shooting and oh we can’t forget running for your grey screened scrap of a life to find cover because you’re nearly dead again.

This of course is mixed up by the addition of a number of fun to use weapons (I found the shotgun and the miniature hand cannon the most satisfying) which made for an entertaining few hours of picking particularly inappropriate weapons to get the job done because you didn’t want to run around with the AK-47 all game. I would have to say that I regret there weren’t more moments you could sneak up behind unsuspecting enemy to perform immoral and shameful (if not rather inelegant) acts of silent killing. What seems like a lot of effort went into creating this ability is only used in one instance of the game. The rest it seems that the enemy has the heads up on your whereabouts from a tracker sneakily placed in your underpants while you weren’t looking. Occasionally they’ll throw in a puzzle to solve as an obstacle for moving through the story line too fast. The camera angles only very rarely annoy the crap out of you.

The addition half way through the game of a jet ski adventure up a river lead to a couple times where my friends would enter the room and state “Where the bloody hell did you find a jet ski in a jungle river… ruins” and I would turn to them and say “Well obviously I… I have absolutely no idea – it was just sitting there” convenient really.

Lets just say that the monotony of game play is ever so slightly hidden behind a variety of well designed environments like the jungle, the ruins, the jungle ruins, the waterfalls, the jungle waterfalls, the ruins waterfalls and the list goes on. I’ll give it to them. A lot of effort went into making this scenery look good. I did stop every now and then to explore and appreciate all parts of it (and not just to check if I’d missed a treasure anywhere). It’s just a real shame you have to run past most of it.

I’ll tell you one thing I really admired in the game (whether or not the game designers intended it or not) is that when the twist in story occurred (not giving away any plot points here), there was a distinct change in my style of playing the game. It moved quickly from repetitive cover to cover, aim and shoot style playing, to just plain run and blindly shoot around you. It really became a “no time to think about anything, blast away the neverending spawn of enemy until you solve the puzzle… somehow” type game.

Cutscenes-a-plenty in this game and overall the experience felt like I was running through a movie, and todays screening was Indiana Jones and the Jungle Ruins Filled with AK-47 Wielding Baddies.

Being relatively new to the whole “console gaming” experience, the push the right button or die reaction sequences tend to give me a little trouble, where failing meant that you would be required to sit through the previous cut scene all over again. As they didn’t appear very often through the game, this inevitably meant you were never ready for them and were doomed to experience the bad side of things before you got to see the good side. The PS3 controls aren’t brilliant for shooting but I think the game gives you a little leeway with the controlled hidey-shooty style of game play. Generally the wall hanging/leaping is pretty intuitive. If you can leap in a direction, you were probably meant to. The save at any moment option helps with the whole fitting the game in around a… ahem… hectic lifestyle.

I’m still not entirely sure of what the go with collecting the treasures around the place is. Something about unlocking different costumes for your characters?!? I’m sure it will all become clear in a not so distant future.

Now I don’t have particularly high standards when it comes to games or movies… or anything…. But I quite enjoyed this one. Overall – not nearly as frustrating as Mirrors Edge.

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