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Superman Returns |
Superman ReturnsNever one to take anyone's word for it, I bought this game with the muttering "How bad could it be?" I'd played the demo, and it was alright. Not great, but alright. I decided that I'd buy the game if it turned up anywhere cheap enough, and Gameplay's sale had it pretty cheap. Having played it for a while I can tell you the game is alright. Not great, but it's a nice distraction now and then. It's not worth more than the £14.99 I paid for it though. The sound is better than the demo, and the game is fun to play. Part flying game, part fighting (you learn new combo moves), it's got a bit of everything. I'll list the bad stuff now:
The Metropolis map is fairly large. Even at superspeed, it takes a minute and a half to fly from one end to the other. The powers are nicely done, and the burst mode superbreath is fantastic (freezes an entire area at once). I do enjoy the game, and I'll probably play it until I finish it or get stuck, but the small annoyances in it really get to me after a while. Score: A disappointing C-. Good effort, could do better. |
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Star Trek: LegacyIt's very odd. I've never simultaneously loved and hated a game so much at the same time. I mean: It's Star Trek and I love Star Trek games. Mostly they tend to be very good quality. Bridge Commander was great. Klingon Academy was excellent, and the mod community kept it alive for years. But Legacy..... Well, let's start with the good stuff. It looks great. No, really that's a big plus. I've never seen the ships look so good, the weapon effects are spot on and the warp effect is perfect. I've never seen any other Star Trek game get the warp effect right, so this is a big plus for me. The interface is very simple to learn. The WASD keys steer the ship, the mouse looks around you, and that's about it. Really clean and simple. Now the bad stuff. It's a 360 port. It's a very bad 360 port. The game is full of bugs. The AI of the opposing ships is bad, but nothing like as bad as your own ships. I've seen them sit there, getting shot to pieces and not firing back. The command issue doesn't work. Firstly there's no way to tell friendly ships to attack your target, but worse than this the ships often forget their commands. Tell your ship to go to a location then jump to another ship to make it go there too, and by the time you've gone back to the first ship, it's forgotten the command. Graphically, damage to your ship doesn't seem to correspond to the damage meter. Every hit to you causes some damage or scarring on the hull. The controls in the manual do not match the controls on the keyboard, and worst of all, the button for "target this ship" is the same one as "go to this location", so it's impossible to target a new ship without turning in its direction. In addition, the target lock often fails and is very hard to fix, so you can't shoot back. The tutorial is a joke. It tells you to scan a planet, but doesn't tell you which button starts the scan and (as already mentioned) reading the manual can't help you. There are five intro videos to skip past. I should have realised when I saw the CBS logo. This was a bad omen... The loading bar is a joke, it does not give any indication of when the level will load. It seems to jump rapidly to two-thirds full, then halts there for a minute or two, then the level loads. The menu is frustrating, as every time you open the main menu, it insists on animating this opening door effect to reveal the buttons, which takes about five seconds. Eventually you want to start screaming "Stop looking flashy and show me the sodding buttons!" The skirmish mode is a nightmare. Firstly, you can't select which enemy ships you'll go up against, so you can't "re-create" historic battles to play them your way. Secondly, the command point purchase system is out of balance. A Galaxy class cruiser costs the same as a Defiant class destroyer? Get outta here... And thirdly, the game doesn't know when you win. In theory skirmish ends when no other opposing ships are left, when you have destroyed all enemy ships. But I've played a few games where there were still enemy ships fighting and the game suddenly declares me the victor. But the worst part is the sound. Unsynchronised, overlapping voices (often the same actor's voice saying two things) or just plain missing. The "loading music" seems to be timed for an over optimistic loading time. Because my PC takes longer to load a level, the music skips, re-starts and just sounds awful. Frankly, I'm glad I only paid £17 for this from Play. If I'd paid the £30 odd that high street stores are charging, I'd be madder than hell. The name seems to be apocryphal because the game feels like it was written with legacy software. |
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A-10 Cuba!Now, I should start by saying that this is a very old game. It's spec says it needs Windows 95. But luckily I found it while clearing out some junk in the flat, and it's on the Windows XP compatible list. So I installed it (Hey, it's only 80 meg and it doesn't even need the CD to run) and gave it a bash. I had honestly forgotten how much fun this was to play. It was the first true Windows 95 game I ever owned, and even back then it didn't have the best graphics in the world. All polyhedrons and sharp edges. The game makers had deliberately sacraficed looks to get the physics right. It won several awards (including mentions by the US Air Force) for it's realistic nature. In effect, it's really a simulator of the actual A-10 simulator that pilots learn to fly on. So what's so great about it? Well, several things.
Other things I liked included, for the first time: mouse support in game. Can't remember which key turns the engines on, or sets the weapon release mode to jettison? No problem. Hit Caps Lock and a mouse pointer turns up and you can just click on the control you need. Bad points: At the time I first got it, none. But later I got F/A18 Falcon 3.0, and that game was just as realistic, but featured both good graphics and an in-game flight school to teach you everything from landing to the hardest attack ever "The Inverted Ground Level CCIP Drop." Basically this involves approaching a hard target (SAM/AAA site) at almost ground level in bombing mode, to avoid being shot at. However, since the CCIP reticule for placing the bombs on target would be off screen on the HUD, you need to do this while upside down, to lock the CCIP reticule on, then flip right way up, release and pull up like your life depended on it (which it did). Plus you got to do carrier landings, and boy they're fun! But Falcon lost points because it didn't have the mouse interface, and often in game I'd hear a beeping and have to pause the game to figure out what it was and what I could do about it. Let's put it this way: The real F/A 18 has seven different ways to fire just the AIM-9A missiles, only four of which require the pilot to do anything. And this game represents all seven modes in full detail. That's not a bad thing, I enjoyed the realism, it just means it's harder to get into the game to start with. Score: |
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Lego Star Wars 2Well, this FINALLY arrived from Play.com. How long have I been waiting? Must be nearly a month... Very similar in feel and attention to detail from the first game, all the little jokes are in there. I was playing level 1 of Return of the Jedi in Jabba's palace, assembled some Lego bricks, which turned out to be a jukebox. It starts blaring out a rock anthem version of the Star Wars theme tune, and I run up some stairs to find two gammorean guards playing air guitar with their axes. Words cannot describe how fun this game is. Playing the battle of Hoth in the snowspeeder, I didn't even try to figure out the objective, I just blasted seven shades out of the imperial walkers. Definitely a must have for fans of Star Wars, fans of Lego and any fans of off beat humour. It's just a pity that a lot of the really cool real Star Wars Lego isn't available in UK shops. They look like great toys....for kids. |
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Just CauseHmm...where to begin. I don't want this to sound like a gurn, because I really like this game. It's very different to anything I've played previously. But it does have it's drawbacks. First, the good stuff. The island looks fantastic! The game is a lot of fun to play, and there's some great missions in there. Plus, you can have a lot of fun larking about (like GTA really). I nicked a plane, headed up to the clouds and the jumped out. Then dived after the plane, James Bond style and got back in. Rinse and repeat a few times, then I just went all out sky diving. It's great fun. The island was miles below me. Playing chicken with the ground (typically I pull the chute when I can see people). The island is massive, so the extraction function is handy. The combat looks great, explosions are impressive looking and the game's reliance on "action movie physics" rather than realistic physics is a welcome change. Now, sadly, the bad stuff. It's a console port. I'm sorry, but it is. It's not a bad port, but neither is it a good port. For example: there's no sensitivity control on the mouse, graphics options are basic at best and menus scroll annoyingly slowly. It doesn't recognise more than the three basic mouse buttons, so remapping button 5 to reload is impossible. The engine is unstable on the ATI chipset. The opening company logo movies break up, and I found that the engine becomes unstable and prone to stutters and crashes after about an hour's worth of play. There's only the most basic of settings, and the game does not perform a system check to find what your card can support, beyond checking what resolution you're currently running. This means that lower end graphics card owners like myself need to fiddle with the settings to make it work. There's tons of little niggles: You can't change the graphics settings without exiting the game completely, the AI of freedom fighters is terrible, often picking a fight with you for a single misplaced shot rather than attack the four policia shooting them. The manual is completely useless, barely enough info to start the game, and no troubleshooting section. The lack of artificial horizon while flying the plane is a real bug, since the camera takes a lot longer to snap back to behind than in GTA, it makes flying through cloud a little more tricky. Controls are also a lot more simplified, which makes for easier playing if a little boring. The most annoying feature is the little pop-ups. God, it's like the Microsoft Paperclip has invaded the game. "It looks like you're riding a motorbike. Would you like help?" For a start they constantly repeat themselves, like telling you the green icon is the local rebel leader, presumably because they need to hammer it home since there's no guide in the manual. But the most annoying feature is that when you use a vehicle for the first time, the pop up appears after you start moving. I'd travelled 100 yards on the bike and in the car before it popped up to tell me how to drive the damn things! 'Yes, thank you! I figured out that W is go and S is stop!" I felt like shouting. Don't let this put you off. It is an excellent game, highly enjoyable. Variable missions and great look. The cars are all detailed and handle differently. Oddly, I found it very hard to drive police cars. I also seem to have annoyed the local drugs cartel. Might be because I keep nicking their cars. Hey, they're purple and fast. What more do you want? Also, in a refreshing (and bugging) change is that you can get killed crossing the street. You can roll out of a flaming car doing 60mph just before it explodes and suffer no harm, but a little old granny with bad reflexes can flatten you underneath the hood of her Oldsmobile. If you're looking for another GTA clone, this is not it. It's very different. If you're looking for a PC game that let's you customise the controls and sensitivity, keep walking. This is not the game for you. If you're looking for a fun game, then this might just float your boat. 6/10 |
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NightfireReading Daniel's review of Killzone on the PS2 and his comment that it was "the worst implemented FPS" he's ever played, I think I also have a contender for that position. There was a PC James Bond game, called Nightfire, or something similar that came out a few years ago. Now I was not expecting much. I'd played Bond FPS on the PS One, and was not impressed (in one of them you can't drop down a level. You have to go around ramps etc. Even if the drop is only two pixels!) So I bought this. The opening was great. You parachute down onto a castle to the Bond theme tune. I was humming along. Do-do-do-do do-do-doo! Do-dele-do do-do-do! Excellent so far. Then you get a choice: Sneaky sneaky, drop onto a truck, or all out assault. There were some nice touches, the left mouse button fires the PPK, the right one fits/removes the silencer. I ran about for a while, then got into the castle, using a gadget or two. However, once inside it went downhill faster than James chasing Blofelt in a toboggan. I dont know what it was exactly, the NPCs who kept intersecting each other. The person who wouldn't give me my mission data. Maybe it was the invisible doors or perhaps it was the floor that kept disappearing. I felt fairly motion sick. After checking the website, it was recognised as a "problem" but there was not currently a solution to it. Also the game played a lot like a direct console port, so the turn rate was console like (you know what I mean, the turn rate designed for a thumbstick, not a mouse), graphics weren't as good as they could have been on a PC. The settings didn't go up that high. I gave up in the end. 1/10 (for effort and the opening) |
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The Sims 2: UniversityAs I suspected, Maxis have started releasing expansions for "The Sims 2". The first is "Sims 2 University." It creates an expanded area for each neighbourhood and allows you to send any active sim teenager off to university. It's quite detailed, although very "samey", ie they live in one lot and can visit community lots like the library, gym, student union, frat houses and if they have time classes in the auditorium. As in keeping with the Sims 2 theme, you can have one of three pre-built universities, or you can make your own and you can attach more than one to each neighbourhood, so you can create rival universities. It's probably got enough new stuff to keep me distracted for a while and as with all expansions it adds a lot of new items for you. One difference I noticed is that it saves the savefiles in a different format, so it prompts you to back up your sims before you install it. The next one out (if I remember correctly) is Sims 2 Nightlife. Expect clubs, raves and cheesy discos I suspect. 7/10 It'll probably grow more addictive and get a better score, the more I play it. |
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Codename: DroidSeeing as we're having a nostalgia fest, anyone remember this? I played it on the Acorn Electron (cut down version of the BBC Master or Micro). This was the sequel to Striker (or Sriker's Run or something), but far surpassed the original. You had to run about shooting and dodging things, swinging from ropes (quite advanced for the time) and down in caves and secret labs. I never got past level 2, but strangely never got frustrated with this. Something else I remember, none of these games had level unlock codes, and they couldn't save progress, so there was no way to get to the later levels without playing through the entire game. That's why I got the most useful bit of kit ever invented for my Spectrum +2A. It was called the "Plus D" and it connected a 3.5 inch floppy drive utilising the expansion port on the back. It could only use 720K disks, but as the machine had 128K memory, and could run in 48K original emulator mode, that meant several games per disk. It had a big red button on the back that flashed the entire memory state onto the disk. Brilliant! No more loading times, load games in seconds! I was the envy of all of my mates still stuck on cassette tapes. They were playing about two games a night due to load times (and the Speccy needed you to turn off the tape at the right point, or it overloaded the memory and crashed. My Acorn had a remote control to stop teh tape when it wanted to.) I was played four or five games a night. Incidentally, my indoctrination to the Simpsons was first through their Speccy computer game with Bart on a skateboard! |
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Spiderman 2I know this is a little old now, but I only just got it as part of a "2 for 30" deal in Virgin. (I almost never pay full price for new games, unless I really really want them - like The Sims 2) This game is great fun to play, and the control system makes it easy to play, and I have to say, web slinging around New York is great fun! As with most games, it starts easy and gets progressively harder. Whenever you encounter a new baddie, the game pauses and tells you the moves to defeat him. In some cases this is very useful, as otherwise you'd be knackered. Although in others it's a little insulting, like for Doc Ock: "Dodge his tentacles, run up, then smack him in the head." Duh! Having said that, the game is great fun, I can't put it down. And it is far better than the first gamewith it's stupid "fog" at street level. 7/10 Points deducted for that annoying invisible wall that prevents you climbing to the top of some buildings. |
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FreelancerI got this with Spiderman 2 in a 2 for 30 deal from Virgin. Their game section is actually half decent now that they've revamped the store, it's well worth a look for some bargains. This is a Microsoft Game Studios game. Yes, I was surprised too, I didn't know they made PC games. It's a space combat game set in the distant future, although there are a few "point and click" ground based bits, for characterisation. If you were fond of Elite and its sequels Frontier and Encounters, then this might just be the game for you. Combat is not too difficult, but not too insultingly easy either. Graphics are quite good, and there's a good story to it too. Basically it follows the same idea as Elite, start with almost nothing, get a basic ship and then what you do is up to you, although there are scripted missions, if you want them. Trade with planets, go bounty hunting, become a pirate, whatever floats your boat. There are some nice features, like if you want to buy, say food rations, the game tells you how much per item you'll pay for it, what nearby planets will buy it off you, and how much they will pay you. Later you can upgrade your ship, or trade it in for a better one. The opening CGI is really quite good, shot a bit like Babylon 5 (ie the camera "reacts" to explosions the same way a reporter filming something would.) and the basic storyline is excellent. There's a multiplayer option available, and it works by using one of the players as a server, so you can easily play you mates and don't have to worry about hosting the game on a central server. 7/10 Worth a look if you like space combat, but if you like really complex games, its probably not for you. On an obscure note: there's no roll available. You cannot rotate your ship, even though the autopilot will often do this for you when performing a docking operation. |
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Elite Force 2I've just finished this game again, playing the alternate storyline. An excellent sequel to the original, this time the Hazard Team have been assigned to Captain Picard's Enterprise. The opening credits are very nice, the game play is very good. You get to run around the ship, you can visit places like main engineering, the bridge, sickbay, etc. The main problem being, of all the original cast, only Captain Picard is there. OK Patrick Stewart is doing the voice, but there's not even an attempt at explaining where everyone else it. The game could be seen as being set after Nemesis (based on the tricorder design) so Data, Troi and Riker's absense is explained and Reg Barclay is there, so there's an attempt at appealing to core gamers, but everyone else is sadly absent. There's also some attempt at puzzle solving, using the tricorder to re-wire systems to avoid shorts, but this is not very good, often annoying and rather pointless. Sadly the game comes down to basic shooting and running. The story is compelling, and you get to do some pretty cool stuff, like stnad by Picard on teh bridge with rifles shooting invaders, walk on the Enterprise hull, prevent a warp core overload, etc. Unfortunatley, some of the levels are quite "samey" and often quite linear. The weapons, scenery (particularly on the ship), characters and sounds are all perfect, so it is quite an immersive game. 6/10 Good game, could have been done better. As most gamers know, Lucasarts release a Star Wars game every two years or so, and they usually rock. Paramount release a Star Trek game every three years, and on average, one in two suck. Luckily this is one of the good ones. |
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Knight RiderAll right, don't give me that look! We all remember Knight Rider from the 1980s, Michael, KITT, Devon, Bonnie, FLAG and the baddies, Garth Knight, Goliath, KARR... Well they're back. This game is a couple of years old now, but well worth a review. It's made by Davilex, but is actually an OK game. Graphics aren't great, but the story is very, very good and the CGI of the car will blow you away. Seriously. I had to look twice to realise it wasn't ACTUAL footage from the TV series. There are a couple of problems with it, like the steering sensitivy setting in the options is difficult to see that it defaults to 50% and you need to it set to max to drive propery, and each level starts with a camera view far too close to the car to be able to drive, but other than that it's great. I grinned chasing KARR along canyon tops I screamed "mother of god!" as the bridge exploded under me and I had to turbo-boost to safety I laughed in joy as KITT was fitted with Super Pursuit Mode The levels are quite different and varied. Some are simple chases, but others require a bit of stunt work (turbo-boost, ski mode, etc) to get up on buildings, over bridges, etc to solve puzzles, sometimes to a time limit. Sadly there are only 12 levels to this game, but they are excellent. A little linear in places, but then you probably need that for a car racing game. I've also heard that there is a sequel in the pipeline. 7/10 It's not aged too badly, but there are a couple of places where it could be improved. Add to that they don't know how many under bumper lights KITT's supposed to have and using a mirrored image of KITT on the reverse of the DVD style case sleeve was unforgivable. |
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Jedi AcademyWell, I have now finally completed this game as both a lightside Jedi and a darkside Sith. Anyone who has player the Jedi Knight series of games form Lucasarts will be familiar with the basic story; start as a padawan level force user and progress through teh game. Like all other games, how you play affects your character from being a good Jedi to an evil Sith. The final level playing as Sith is tremendously hard, all the other Sith and Jedi are trying to kill you. so you have twice the number of opponents to kill. Mostly I just ran away. Then I got to fight Kyle Katarn, which was excellent. Well worth a second look if anyone has it, although you can now pick it up from Game for about £10 7/10 It hasn't aged a bit. |
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Babylon 5: I've Found HerNot many people will have played this game. It is a fan built game that was on a coverdisc a few months ago and can be downloaded from the Internet. The game is a Starfury fighter game. For anyone who's seen Babylon 5, Starfuries are those little fighters that launch from the station and Earth Force ships. Now you may not recall, but a few years ago Sierra were making a starfury game. That game got dropped due to "technical difficulties". Most B5 fans had a mixed reaction. On one hand, sad that it wasn't going to be released, on the other quite glad that it wasn't Sierra who were going to make it. At the time Sierra were known for making games that were good, but just not great (think Davilex today) Anyway, this new game is excellent. The visuals are stunning, the jumpgate effect is near perfect, and the ships look great. Combat is quite difficult to get used to, the physics are reasonably realistic,so if you suddenly change direction, the Starfury takes a little while to catch up. There's also the mind boggling "inerita mode" to get used to. This is where the engines are turned off and you can spin to face he direction you are coming from. It is highly addictive though, great fun to play and a must for any B5 fan. It's only a pity that this is a demo, with no sign of a full game in the works. I think it may be a "hey look at this" message to the software houses to show them that a B5 game can be made and can work. 9/10 Quite simply: Excellent. |
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The Sims 2I've just got The Sims 2, having bought the original and all seven (yes seven) expansion packs for it. I really like this sequel. It's great fun to play, lots of nice features (like Neighbourhood design and creating, which the old game did not have) and full 360 degree rotation. There are more interaction possible, although I am still getting used to the aging of sims. You play by selecting an active sim and the clicking on an object or other sim and select actions to perform. So a sim can "sleep" or "relax" on a bed. But two sims on a bed, have options: "Hug", "Make out", "Try for baby" and "Woohoo!" (with added firework effect) One of the main changes is the customisability of the sims. Previously, you chose a skin tone, which selected a list of heads and bodies (clothes), and that was it. If you play Star Wars Galaxies, and spent loads of time customising your character's face (eyes, nose, etc), you ain't seen nothin yet! The amount of customisation is impressive. Also new is the ability to preset relationships, notably spouse. In the old game, you had to work to get the two sims to fall in love, which could take time. Now you can preset it at the start. This is another EXCELLENT Maxis game, highly addictive and playable. Bad points: Well, as pointed out by a friend (and experienced myself), the Sims 2 (after exiting) prevents Internet Explorer from working. You need to reset the computer. Score: 9.5/10 (Half point deducted for Internet problem) BTW Did anyone else notice that "Maxis" spelt backwards in "Six AM"? |
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