Amazing. Just utterly amazing. It’s a totally new, but totally retro, video game that plays fantastically, and is even better than the games it apes.
I won’t spoil it all, but I do need to say how much I enjoyed spotting references to other games in this one – both in the levels, and the items you can buy. I love that sort of stuff.
If you haven’t already, buy it now.
I’ve not read the comics. I’ve not seen the film. But, after seeing just a handful of screenshots a few weeks ago for the game, I knew I’d want it. So confident was I, that I didn’t even bother trying the demo – I stumped up my 800 Microsoft Moon Pounds and bought the full game.
And I was right – I love it. It’s a great mix of River City Ransom, Guardian Heroes, Streets of Rage, and that Puffy AmiYumi DS game I quite enjoyed a few years ago. The retro graphics were always going to appeal to me, and the collect money to buy power-ups and character level progression suit my OCD perfectly.
The fighting is pretty good too, with more moves unlocked as you level up, and attacks becoming faster and stronger as you buy “upgrades” from the various shops. It’s a shame this is all lost on those trying the demo – as on Level 1 with no extra moves, the game is reduced to a painfully slow, difficult, brawler with only a couple of moves to pull off. I wonder how many people tried the demo and were put off?
I’ve just beaten Evil Ex-Boyfriend #3, and am now going to rinse the first couple of levels a few times for more money for stat increases. Again.
I was one of the lucky ones to get a free code for this, since The Times cocked up and allowed their “subscriber only” offer to be accessible to all and sundry. I’d just played the demo too, and was about to buy it anyway when I realised I had enough other games to be getting on with so would wait for a price drop. Ten minutes later – free code!
You’ll be noticing that there’s no “Tomb Raider” in the title. There are, however, tombs (of a sort) to traverse, and indeed “raid”, but the developers have chosen to distance this a bit from those platforming, 3rd person puzzle shooting games, instead turning this into a sort of grown-up Lego Indiana Jones crossed with the likes of Geometry Wars. No, stay with me on this…
You see, it’s a simplified Tomb Raider, in terms of types, quantity and complexity of puzzles. Puzzles much like those in the Lego games. There are also some objects that can only be destroyed or activated with certain weapons – like in the Lego games. And it’s all viewed from a sort of isometric angle, not entirely unlike the Lego games. Then there’s the combat, which is pretty standard twin-stickery, like Geometry Wars (and 446512 other games). See? That wasn’t so hard to imagine, was it?
But is it any good? Let me put it this way – I got it on Friday, completed it on Sunday, and it was the only game I played (or even wanted to play). So yes, it’s good. It’s short (although there are more episodes planned as DLC), at around 4-5 hours, and pretty easy, but it was great fun and it surprised me how well a Tomb Raider game could work when not actually presented like a Tomb Raider game.
The only real disappointments were that the end boss was far too easy, and some of the game is repetitive. It also suffers a bit from a cliché of how to make games harder later on: simply have more baddies.
At a rough guess, I think I’ve put around 18 hours into this. My understanding is you can complete it in under 10, but since I have OCD, I had to search everywhere, examine everything, access every bit of the map, open every door, hack every machine, rescue every Little Sister, max out every research track, buy every plasmid and gene tonic slot, and listen to every audio diary. I even found myself using up ammo just so I could collect more ammo to replace it. Yes, I clearly have a problem.
How to sum up the game without spoilers? Well, it was more of the same of the first game really. Some improvements (dual-wielding plasmids and weapons, better “where am I going” hints, less getting lost), and some let downs (more linear game, too many “collect X of Y”, less powerful storyline, no proper end boss). Still an excellent game, but perhaps a 4/5 rather than the 5/5 of the original.
Strangely, the thing I missed most from the original was something I thought quite irritating at the time – all the vending machines singing “Welcome to the Circus of Values!” and stuff whenever you went near them. They rarely did it in the sequel.
Since completing Lego Indiana Jones 2, Bioshock 2 is pretty much the only game I’ve played. I’ve not played it terribly far in, either, having only picked up the film camera about an hour’s play ago, and I’ve only just finished the Sinclair Hotel bit. I don’t know how far that puts me through the game, but if I assume the train line map is an indication, then perhaps a quarter?
Things I’m liking so far:
Things I’m not liking so far:
It’s certainly enjoyable, and it’s nice to be back in Rapture. I think it’s a shame that the original seemed to have all the “best” locations (so far) as the amusements were little more than a single “ride”, and Pauper’s Drop is dull. The hotel is almost a clone of the apartments from the original too. Doesn’t look like you get to revisit anywhere from the original either.
I suppose it was never going to be as good as the first game, and it’s not bad at all, so I can live with all that. Needs to have an OMFG AMAZE reveal like “would you kindly” though.
Torn. Very torn.
You see, Lego games are some of the BEST. THINGS. EVAR. However, Harry Potter and Harry Potter Related Things are some of the WORST. THINGS. EVAR. So Lego Harry Potter is an irresistible force meeting an immovable object, innit?
I don’t know. It was OK. But I hated it. And I loved the Legoness. And having idiot wizard children and beardman and a rubbish dog was stupid. But smashing things and collecting studs was great. But it was Harry Potter and I wanted to smash my TV instead. Gah!
You know I’ll buy it.
All done! Finished the final two achievements (replay all the levels in Quick Play, and the quite difficult Complete Hangar 51 In Under 5 Minutes). The Hangar 51 one took 6 or 7 attempts, but finally I managed to do it in 4:46 having fluked three hits on the end of level boss. Phew!
That means I’ve 100%ed it, 1000/1000ed it, and seen and done everything the game has to offer. Hurrah!
Well, it’s about time I finally completed something! It’s been months! Admittedly, I’ve been somewhat busy for the last couple of months, and consoleless for around a month of that time, but still.
Not only have I completed Lego Indiana Jones 2 today, but I then went on to 100% it. Since I’d been playing to get 100%, that wasn’t too long afterwards as I’d already done nearly everything necessary. The final few % came from just buying stuff in the Creator mode, which was a bit unsatisfying. I still have two achievements left to get though.
My overall verdict of the game? Pretty good. The hub worlds were a bit confusing to start with, but I grew to love them and I hope future Lego games also have them. The levels themselves were a little short, and the Super Bonus Levels were pretty rubbish (not a patch on the equivalents in previous titles, anyway) since you just smash trees and collect studs.
Still rattling through this. I’ve now 100%ed both chapters 1 and 2 of The Crystal Skull, completed both the Super Bonus levels for doing so, and completed (but not 100%ed) both chapter 3 and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
You know, at first I wasn’t sure of this new hub-based level structure, but I’ve grown to really like it. I’ve noticed there’s no Free Play mode any more either – instead, you redo old levels, differently. Like the giant spider creature you fight: Go back there later and you do the same level only it’s all trampolines and careful jumps rather than a boss fight!
It’s pretty much all I’ve played this week. And it’s very good. Better than the other Lego titles? Yeah, I think so.
I’m now most of the way through Chapter 2 of the Crystal Skull. The hub world here is huge, and the puzzles in it and hidden items really add to the fun. There just seems so much more to do in it than any of the other Lego game “hubs”.
What I’m not so keen on, however, are the vehicle “bash them off the road” levels. Mind you, I’ve not really liked any of the vehicle levels in any of the previous games, and these are different in that you can get out and walk, so it’s not all bad.
It was my birthday yesterday, and my lovely wife and daughter bought me this (and two other sequels – Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2). So I set up my 360 for the first time in three months and had a go.
It actually took quite a while to get into the game, but once in, it was all great!
Clearly it’s going to be more of the same Lego stuff, but there are differences. Each “episode” has its own hub world where some of the action takes place, and other levels (“proper” and bonus) are opened up from. There are puzzles in the hub to do this. The actual levels themselves are more like the original title, only (so far) they’ve been a fair bit shorter. Not that that’s a bad thing, of course.
The graphics have been really upgraded since the last Lego title too. No longer do they just look like shiny PS2 bricks – they’re proper HD now!
So far, I’ve completed two “proper” and three “bonus” levels, as well as some of the smaller story events, for The Crystal Skull.
With Mass Effect bagged on Monday, my next game to tackle was this. And what an absolutely outstanding game it was!
I didn’t really enjoy the demo when I played that a while back, but now having played the full game I can see why – you miss some of the first part of the game out, and are chucked into a later bit too early. This means you need to use some slightly more advanced techniques too soon. It also doesn’t give you long enough to get used to the basics before you’re ready.
Another thing that concerned me was the fact it was a licenced game, and they’re generally rubbish. Since this is not actually based on a specific Batman comic or film (as far as I’m aware), I think that helps.
Somehow, Batman manages to blend together several games – Tomb Raider, Watchmen, Gears of War, Splinter Cell and even Metroid without losing it’s own identity, even if a few sections (the clambering round near the sewers and caves, and the Botanical Gardens boss in particular) did make me think I’d swapped games for a minute.
Just two things annoyed me: 1) there’s an achievement you can miss if you don’t fight the goons just before the final boss (they don’t attack you, so I didn’t attack them – oops!), and 2) the entire Killer Croc section was utter pants. Thankfully, the former is just an annoyance and the latter didn’t last too long, so all is forgiven.
And replay value? Well, I’ve only got about 65% of The Riddler’s riddles completed, and I haven’t even started the Challenges yet, so there’s plenty still left to do!
Overall, an excellent game! Next?
At almost exactly 22 hours into the story, I completed the game. And it was a very good game too, even if there were lots of things I didn’t like about it (more on them in a minute). I won’t reveal any spoilers, except one: who’d have thought Saren would have turned out to be the Green Goblin? He’s even got the thrown explosives and flying surfboard thingy. I suppose the clue was in his face. See:
Saren?
Green Goblin?
Anyway. The bad bits. Firstly, (and ironically, lastly) there’s the ending. After it, it really is the end – you can’t go back and complete missing missions and assignments. There’s no real plot reason for it either – although not everything goes back to normal after the end, certainly there’s no reason why most of the missions can’t then be completed.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the “point of no return” was well sign posted. It wasn’t, and not only that, it isn’t even the final mission that triggers it. In fact, once you land on Virmire in the game (a good 5 or more hours before the final showdown, on my play through) – that’s it. You’re locked into the ending without being able to complete most of the remaining quests. Yeah, so you might have a save before then, but you’re allowed so few save slots it’s likely you won’t, even if (like me) you were anticipating such an event.
Then there’s the graphics. They’re lovely. Only they jerk around like the whole game is on a bouncy castle. In some of the final sections of the game, there’s horrific slowdown, tearing, and graphical anomalies. Yeah, there’s a lot going on – but it’s supposed to be the nail-biting climax, not a wade through wobbly treacle. Thankfully, this isn’t a problem for most of the game, and it usually only happens in the Mako.
An exception to the graphics being lovely: the geth. Perhaps if they had more than two frames of animation between them, they’d be lovely too. Mind you, they were usually dead before they got close enough to see what they were.
And the lifts! Oh my god. Most tedious part of the game by far. Especially the one on the Citadel that takes you from the docking bay to C-Sec (why? What have C-Sec got to do with the docking?) – it takes AGES and unlike most of the other lifts in the Citadel, it can’t be skipped with a Fast Transport panel.
Item and upgrade management is also a chore. Especially having a limit on how many items you can carry. After every mission I had to sell everything – which takes ages – or lose new stuff, since when your inventory is full, any new items are automatically converted to Omni-gel. Yes – new (and usually, better) items; not old items you would probably sell anyway. Stupid!
Finally, the difficulty. Yes, I know I played it on Normal (I almost always play games on whatever their default setting is) and that there are harder settings. However, for the final 15 or so hours of the game I simply didn’t bother with weapon upgrades, improvements, and that sort of stuff as it was too much of a pain. Which meant I should have found it much harder, only it wasn’t. Every single fight was a pushover – even the final one.
But you know what? None of that really matters. In fact, the only one I can really complain about is the no-way-back ending. Everything else is just a minor irritation. The winning points are the story and the believable, deep universe the game is set in. Bioware have gone all out on making something more watchable (let alone playable) than most science fiction films. The back story, the way you slowly unearth the history of the races and the Protheans, the side missions and overheard conversations. A high point was the reveal of the Keepers’ role in everything – clever how they are there the whole time, but understated and underexposed, then suddenly it all makes sense.
I’m certainly hyped for the sequel now, especially since virtually all of my complaints with the first game have supposedly been dealt with!
This is the game I’ve played most this week. In fact, it’s pretty much the only thing bar Excitebike I’ve played. I’m getting into it now, and really enjoying it. It’s not perfect (the jerking graphics, the difficult to negotiate “bumpy” planets, the stupid lifts, the backtracking, the item and weapon management, etc.) but the story if gripping and the “just another ten minutes” factor is high.
I’m not sure I like having mission after mission thrown at me every 7 seconds, as it makes my journal look almost untouched the whole time and I feel I’m not actually getting anywhere.
I know this post sounds like a huge moan, but they’re all minor points really. It’s just the game isn’t as perfect as I seem to recall the reviews made it out to be.
All the excitement surrounding the recent release of Mass Effect 2 made me interested in picking up the original game. After all, I enjoyed Knights of the Old Republic, which is very similar (and by the same people), and it should be mere pennies to buy now.
In fact, it was even less than pennies, as somewhere along the line I’d already bought it. And promptly forgotten about it. It certainly made obtaining it to play much quicker, anyway!
I made a start on it tonight. So far, I’ve completed the first mission on Eden Prime, so am just over an hour in. It’s pretty good – even if the graphics jerk like they’re having a fit a lot of the time, and I got very confused over the seemingly three ways of deciding which weapons and armour your characters have equipped, when in fact only one of those ways actually equips them.
Yes, I could read the manual. But I’d left it on the other side of the room.
Immediately after completing Broken Steel, I downloaded and started playing Point Lookout. And oh, is it lovely. It’s the best DLC for the game I’ve played so far (and from what I’ve heard, The Pitt and Mothership Zeta, the two I’ve yet to try, aren’t as good) but it’s HUGE. I’ve done pretty much everything I can – all the achievements, all the quests and side quests, and all the incidental stuff I can find along the way. And it’s taken me over 20 hours. 20 hours! For what was about 6 quid! Bargain.
And excellent it was too. I won’t be getting into any of the other DLC for a little while yet, though, for two reasons: 1) there’s a rumour it’ll be getting a 50% price drop just after Christmas, and 2) I will almost certainly be getting other games for Christmas I’ll be wanting to play. So for now, it’s goodbye (again) to The Wasteland.
After around 12 hours play (yes, I got a bit distracted for a few missions, as usual), I completed Broken Steel. The level cap increase is great, and the addition of the new baddies have made the game hard again (only the Deathclaws ever gave me a challenge once I hit level 20 – and even then only in packs). The Feral Ghoul Reavers, though, are more than a bit hard, are they not?! Even with a weapon that does 100 damage, they take a good 15 or more headshots to take down!
I’m now on Level 24, I think, and have already lapsed back into the whole OCDness of The Wasteland. Every item, bar the very useless, but be picked up. As many weapons as possible – even those I’ll never use – must be carried at all times. And now I have a use for the cameras and sensor modules my inventory management has never been such a mammoth task. But yes, I love it.
I felt it was finally time to return to The Wasteland. So I did.
Part of the reason was that I wanted a game to fill the gap before Christmas, and a Fallout expansion fits the bill. Another reason was that I’ve really got into music from the 40s and Fallout is full of it. No, really – I have.
I bought and downloaded Broken Steel, and have so far completed the mission with the satellite linkup thing. Of course, I dragged things out a bit by doing some hunting, walking not warping, and detouring to a few places I’d not visited on the way. I’ve gained a level already too. It’s great to be back!
Seems I was a bit wrong in my stats last time. I was 50% complete at 8 hours. However, I was pretty close to completing the story, with only a handful of missions available. Still, it took me over 12 hours in total before I completed it.
Thankfully, the ending mission was more lighthearted and less back-stabby than both Nico and Jonny’s plotlines. Even if it did turn out to be utterly ridiculous. Fun though.
I’d previously been playing Perfect Dark Zero on my 360, when, after about 6 levels I thought – “Why the hell am I playing this?”. It was rubbish. And I had a billion other better things to play, like this already downloaded ages ago DLC for GTA IV.
Whereas the main story was all over the place, but mainly involved Russians, and The Lost and Damned was all bikers and backstabbing, Gay Tony is overblown silliness involving nightclubs and helicopters and diamonds and helicopters and basejumping AND HELICOPTERS. Lots of helicopters. ENOUGH WITH THE HELICOPTERS ALREADY.
Seriously. 5 missions in a row were helicopter based.
Not that I dislike helicopters, but I don’t want half the game to take place in the sky.
Anyway. The silliness is funny. As always, the characters are great, the acting is amazing, and the story is gripping. If silly. And Yusef Amir is outstanding.
I think, according to the stats, I’m around 60% through now. Past experience says that the end is just around the corner (as 70%-ish complete is normally “story done” in GTA games). Which is a shame as it seems short. Mind you, TLaD only took about 8 hours to do, so it’s on par with that.
Over the last week I’ve been chipping away at two things – getting myself up to Level 50 (I’m not there yet, but I’m up to about 49.5) and to 100% the game on Insane Mode. Which I did today! Excellent!
It also puts me at 709th in the world 
It seemed shorter and easier than the previous episode (particularly the walk-over of a final boss), but it was still great. There was less to-ing and fro-ing than last time, which was a big improvement. It seemed to come at the cost of loading times though – it takes TEN MINUTES to load the game, which is utterly ridiculous!
Well, it’s whole week really, not just a weekend. I have recently played these:
Guitar Hero World Tour (360)
Meh. It’s very Meh now. And Meh isn’t good. Some of the tracks are OK, but very few are excellent. And what’s with all the country and western? Pah.
Street Fighter IV (360)
I’m rubbish. Really rubbish. Even on Easy I’m having difficulty beating Seth. And El Fuerte is the most ridiculous to control character ever, Ever!
Scribblenauts (DS)
Still excellent and hilarious. Funny for mainly the wrong reasons when things don’t happen as expected. On World 8 now, I think.
And the return of my (well, someone else’s, it seems) repaired Wii meant a splurge and the purchase of three downloadable games:
Pilotwings (Wii)
It’s not actually great. In fact, it’s a bit pants. What a shame.
Solomon’s Key (Wii)
Fun platformy-puzzle thing. It’s getting very hard very quickly, though.
“Aha! I Got It!” Escape Game (Wii)
HARDEST POINT AND CLICK GAME EVER. FRUSTRATE.
After I dropped off my broken Wii at the post office yesterday, I went next door to Blockbuster and accidentally bought Guitar Hero World Tour and Street Fighter IV in a two for £30 deal.
And? Well, it’s Guitar Hero. Only with a pants setlist. Also, I know that it’s now a full-band title so some tracks will be better for guitar than others, but tracks like No Sleep Til Brooklyn actually allow the guitar player to sleep through.
It’s not that the songs are bad, they’re just not a lot of fun to play. Well, not many of them are, anyway.
Whoever put the Mario and Zelda tracks in the GHTunes store though – genius!
This time on Insane Mode. It was hard, very hard, but the game got much easier towards the end and the final boss was really easy. Now for 100%! Again!
