GTA 4 is a great game, but not the perfect game that many reviews would lead you to believe. It’s extremely playable and great fun, with multitude of different gameplay elements crammed in there. You’ll also get somewhere approaching 40+ hours of entertainment from just completing the core missions (i.e. following the main game’s plot). I haven’t even factored in the multiplayer aspect, which is another game itself and a very welcome addition too. But there are a few unsavoury bits in GTA 4, and I’m not talking about the dodgy characters! I’ll discuss these bits as part of my look into 2 of the main elements of GTA 4; in-game artificial intelligence (AI) and in my next post the in-game graphics.

The AI - A bit dim, me:

If GTA 4’s AI was asked to hand over its end of year report to its parents it would show a D+. Shows glimpses of intelligence but spends too much time asleep in the corner, dribbling.

Although to be fair, the GTA 4s AI had a mountain to climb to be anything remotely good when all the previous games were a bit thick. That’s not to say that the AI hasn’t improved. It has, but not as much as I’d expected, or even felt was needed. I can’t help but feel that Rockstar has been a bit lazy in this department. Given the ridiculous budget ($100 million depending on who you believe on the internet) that was available to develop this game we should be marvelling at the realistic, living, breathing, sprawling metropolis populated by realistic inhabitants. Instead, we get a bloody great city populated by idiots. As such I present to you 2 examples of GTA 4s rather stupid behaviour:

It wasn’t me Officer - There I was sitting in a taxi, enjoying the sights and sounds of Liberty City, when my ride came to an abrupt halt. I could see that we’d stopped because of all the traffic ahead waiting to get over the bridge. Fair enough, citizens dutifully paying their tolls. But as the minutes ticked past, and we failed to move an inch, I became just a little bit board. So I paid the nice taxi driver and decided to go jack the car at the front of this toll booth queue. It’s the done thing in GTA, trust me. However, as I got closer to the toll booth the actual cause of the gridlock became clear. A police cruiser. I stood there and watched the pathetic sight of this cruiser gently rocking back and forth stuck between a concrete wall and a toll booth. It was mildly funny until I realised that it never looked like it was ever going to escape. I hadn’t expected the games AI to trip itself up so easily. All very disappointing, even if a little funny to watch.

I seem to be missing a gear – Your character is the only person in the whole of Liberty City that is able to put any car into reverse. I’m serious. I’ve not seen a single, damn car try to reverse itself out of a tight spot/pile up/around an obstacle. Due to the AI being generally rubbish, these situations occur all the time. Also there always seems to be one of these traffic jams when you’re trying to outrun the cops or tail/chase/kill someone. Mmm, suspicious. Couldn’t Rockstar have engineered with a better way of challenging the player than using lazy AI?

Here’s a video illustrating some of the more interesting “features” of GTA 4. As you’ll see it’s not just the AI which is a little bit buggy, its affected many of the vehicles in Liberty City as well:

So that’s the AI covered; lazy and frequently buggy, but hey that’s part of the GTA charm! For my next post I’ll cast my eye over GTA 4s graphics. Next-gen lovelyness or another case of Rockstar being lazy?

Age rating:

3+ (PEGI)

What is it?

A Mario game - 3D-platformer.

Is it fun?

Yes.

Is it worth the money? £29.99

Yes.

Why?

I’ve always been rather indifferent when it comes to Mario games until I played Super Mario 64, which was brilliant. Unfortunately the GameCube’s Mario extravaganza (Super Mario Sunshine) was well, total poo to be honest. However, I’m pleased to say that Super Mario Galaxy tops even the great Mario 64 for sheer enjoyment. I can’t even complain of the total lack of imagination shown by Nintendo when it churns out the same games for each generation of Nintendo console when this incarnation of Mario is just so much fun.

The graphics look great (by Wii standards) and complement the game wonderfully. Sure there are some iffy looking textures and a few jaggies, but I didn’t care as the whole game is amazing. The sound is a perfect mix of chirpyness and classic Mario sounds and themes. It also has a brilliant, brilliant music track for the Battlerock galaxy that I challenge anyone to play this galaxy and not have a giant smile on their face.

I loved the whole playfulness of Mario’s new galaxy environment. Flying, flipping, gliding, jumping and catapulting between all the planets on each of the levels is just awesome. The attention to detail that the designers have lavished on every planet, however small is a joy to behold. I loved the way that seemingly simple puzzles were brought to life by splitting them over lots of mini planets and great use of the Wii controller. This is probably the first game after Wii Sports where the control method just feels right. From rolling around on top a giant ball, to flying through the air as a little bumble bee, the Wiimote and nunchuk make controlling Mario something to be enjoyed.

Bad points. Well, swimming underwater takes a bit of getting used to. The camera has a habit of choosing the worst time to change its viewpoint, which usually happens when you’re negotiating a really nasty sequence of platforms.

It took me just over 14 hours to get to the end of the game and finally beat Bowser, but that still leaves me with another 55 power stars to collect. Then I’ll have finally completed the game. So Lordy knows how long that’s going to take with some fiendish and very dexterous puzzles lying in wait.

In summary:

A wonderful game in every way. Mario is the easily the best game on the Wii.

Screenshots:

It was… packed. Absolutely bloody rammed with people and not really designed to cope with such a high level of interest. Check out the queue for people with standard tickets, as of 10:30 am.

And the VIP queue.

We were in this queue :)

The Games

Once inside, we discovered quite how poorly-laid-out the venue was:

Guitar Hero III and Lego Indiana Jones were probably two of the most-anticipated family-friendly games at the show. What did the organisers do? They put Lego Indiana Jones in a tiny, enclosed booth so that you could neither spectate, nor queue properly to have a go. I couldn’t even get near Guitar Hero III which, as you can see above, was squashed into the corner behind Kung Fu Panda. On the left is the green and white competition stage which is, again, enclosed so you can’t really see what’s going on.

Upstairs was slightly more spacious but didn’t have a whole lot of playable games. The Square Enix section was four TVs showing the same video montage loop. The Mac stand was nice but didn’t garner much interest. Haze and Gran Turismo 5 were popular, the latter having a very nice set of Recaro chairs hooked up to PS3s. Rock Band had a good following. I can only assume that playing it is a lot more fun than spectating. The contrast between a real band and Rock Band was just too obvious in that public setting. It was very much like watching a bunch of school kids playing an unknown piece of music for the first time - all furrowed brows and fervent reading, yet no sense of passion or enjoyment.

The other thing we noticed (and Xino pointed out) was that a lot of the games weren’t exactly new. The 18-only section had such gems as Kane and Lynch (demo already available on Xbox Live), Gears of War (ditto), Oblivion (on PS3, okay) and Halo 3 (being monopolised by people who have clearly played it before). We were amused to find a 360 proudly displaying the Red Ring of Death. ButtonBandits also had a good giggle.

There was some new stuff like Far Cry 2 Condemned 2 and Dynasty Warriors 6 (released in early March) but the most exciting games were barely represented. Here’s everything I could find for Star Wars: Force Unleashed.

Yup, it’s a poster. A large poster. A well-designed poster in 5 parts. But ultimately, a poster. Ghostbusters fared marginally better with a video. Very disappointing.

I did like the look of PDC World Championship Darts on the Wii but it was right up against the tables for the eating area. I’ve played a review copy of the PS2 version but so far have held back from reviewing it on grounds of “If you have nothing nice to say…” I really wanted to try the Wii version for comparison but it was far too much trouble to join the queue without constantly being jostled by people carrying ketchup-laden hot dogs. Speaking of which… a cheeseburger, chips and coke set me back £7.50! A beer was £4.30! I was expecting the prices to be high, but holy crap! On top of the £16 VIP tickets for a show that wasn’t big enough to justify visiting on both days, it was an expensive weekend.

Outside the stadium was a giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and one of those moving pod ride things that you get for simulating roller-coasters and the like. The queue was short so we hopped inside for a wobbly preview of the Iron Man game. Don’t buy it! It looks shabby and plays like the cheap movie tie-in that it is. I hope the film is better, because the trailer looks very promising.

There were some good things about the show. The Bourne Conspiracy demo was fun. Combat was a bit simplistic - block, punch, alternate until the finishing move icon appears, then hit B to (hopefully) finish off the assailant on a handy bit of scenery - but it worked for a ten minute trial. The Quick-Time-Events were even appropriate. They appeared mainly at points where you’d have to react very quickly, like being spotted by a sniper, and the reaction time was very, very short. I would have preferred more direct control, being given the choice of where to run, for example, but I suppose if you’re designing for morons who just want to twitch on buttons and not have to think, then at least they had a good premise for QTEs.

(Yes, I am being uncharitable. Quick Time Events are godawful, lazy game design and anyone who enjoys them should be thrown in a stinking pit with a continuous loop of Uwe Boll films for company.)

The other enjoyable game was Army of Two. This had its own small-yet-roomy booth with two PS3 and two Xbox 360 versions. Even though the game is already out and I was already interested (I really enjoyed co-op Gears of War), I’m not about to drop £40 on a game without having played a demo first. It’s a good co-operative shooter with a not-really-necessary USP, known as the aggrometer. Whenever you shoot or otherwise cause mayhem, you raise the aggro level of the bad guys. If one of you keeps the aggro for a while, they tend to focus entirely on you and forget about your partner, who then turns “invisible” and can run around the behind them and do his murderous thing. As far as I could see, having this visually represented on the HUD was entirely redundant. The ubiquitous tracer rounds used by the enemy do a perfectly good job of indicating who has their attention. Army of Two would be a much more immersive game if aggro was simply a hidden property and TBH, I don’t see how it makes the gameplay significantly different from the enemies’ behaviour in Gears of War. Sure, there are a couple of visual effects and “Overkill” mode but this sort of teamworking and distraction technique has been a staple of shooters for years, no? No matter, there were other fun features that made it enjoyable, despite the overwhelmingly white male cast (with token hot radio female). Co-op parachuting is a nice change from driving+shooting sequences and the back-to-back slow-motion fighting technique is a laugh.

The Shows

I was there for the games. I didn’t care about the shows, which is just as well because there wasn’t a whole lot of space to watch them. I suppose other people might have enjoyed the bands or the obnoxious MC who kept shouting “Xbox 360 is better than PS3 yeah?” despite getting no response, but to me they were oppresive noise. We got a good view of the dancing Vegas showgirls by virtue of being upstairs at the time. Their shows seemed rather pointless to me, having very little to do with Rainbow 6 Vegas, but in a 95% male crowd, there was probably enough of an audience to convince some marketing exec that it was a worthwhile idea.

In summary:

The show was disappointing for those of us who remember the spaciousness of PlayStation Experience or Game Stars Live. It was awkward to queue for the few games we wanted to try. In swag terms, it was dreadful. The great thing about Game Stars Live (2004) and PlayStation Experience (2003) was coming home with a bunch of extra demo discs to play at my leisure from the comfort of my bed. At Play.com Live we got a bunch of flyers, DVDs of Ice Age and Knocked Up (WTF? truly awful film), a fake Stuntman Ignition license plate, some keychains and lanyards, a cheaply printed Fifa Street baseball cap, a pen that lights up and an EA drawstring bag. TheFluffyFist managed to bag himself a 4GB MicroSD card from the SanDisk lucky dip and we breathed the same air as Tom Baker, for those of you who might be impressed by such things.

We thought that having VIP tickets would mean that we could get some time on the more popular games during the “shift-change”, when they booted out the 10am-2pm ticket holders and let the 2pm-6pm ticket holders in. Nope, they kicked everyone out and then let us back in after ten minutes of standing around in the rain. Really crappy treatment and just served to underline how much of a rip-off the “VIP” tickets were.

OTOH, we bought Army of Two from HMV on the way home so we could spend Sunday playing it. Score 1 for the EA booth.

One month later, my boyfriend and his flatmate are sick of me sitting on their couch playing TF2 all the time. Also, Mass Effect was released so I got my own Xbox 360 and flew off on the SS Normandy. In the meantime, I had to get a new debit card because the UK banks have moved away from the wish-it-was-two-factor authentication to actual two-factor authentication. I ordered my new debit card and cancelled my Xbox-Live-known card even though it doesn’t technically expire until September 2008.

There isn’t actually an option to move back to Silver membership from Gold in the Xbox 360 interface. I figured that hey, I can’t use the card in shops any more (I actually tried this), so next time Microsoft try to bill me for the Gold Membership, the charge will get rejected and they’ll downgrade me to a Silver. No problem. My home internet connection is too crappy to play TF2 online anyway.

For Christmas, TheFluffyFist kindly gets me a 12 month subscription card to Xbox Live so that when I do resume playing TF2 I don’t have to give them my new card details and be unable to remove the card info later.

In January, I notice in passing that I still appear to have a Gold membership. “Hmm. That’s strange” I say, but since my two-factor authentication device isn’t in the building, I can’t check my accounts. I forget about it.

Fast forward two months to tonight - I finally got around to looking at my bank statements in detail. Right there in the middle of the month:

“Payment to Microsoft Axbox [sic] Luxembourg This transaction was for GBP 4.99 at exch rate 1.000″

Arse.

Question 1:

How the hell can they continue charging me every month, even though this card was cancelled in November? I shall speak to my bank tomorrow.

Question 2

Does this mean I have to go through the obligatory 3-phone-call ritual and then wait for my non-valid card to be blacklisted before I can stop paying Microsoft for a service I don’t even use?

FFS!

Finally, I’ve been reading Microsoft’s Privacy Statement, which contains the following extract:

“Personal information collected on Microsoft sites and services may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which Microsoft or its affiliates, subsidiaries or agents maintain facilities, and by using a Microsoft site or service you consent to any such transfer of information outside your country. Microsoft abides by the safe harbour framework as set forth by the US Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use and retention of data from the European Union.”

In other words, data submitted to Microsoft is NOT fully protected by the Data Protection Act (1998). If it were, under the core principle of not keeping information longer than is necessary, you would (probably) have the right to have your credit card details removed from payment methods after going through the multiple phone calls that it takes to persuade Microsoft that you no longer want a Gold membership. (Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer.)

Under the Safe Harbour Agreement there is some mention of having the right to delete information where it is inaccurate in Safe Harbour FAQ 8 - Access but… I don’t know how that is applied. Any ideas?

Age rating:

3+ (PEGI)

What is it?

Futuristic racing game, with lots of lovely weapons.

Is it fun?

Yes.

Is it worth the money? £22.99

Yep, every penny.

Why?

Like anything in life, practice makes perfect. So given that Wipeout Pulse is the 8th incarnation of the futuristic racing series does the same analogy hold true? I’m pleased to say it does. Everything that was good about Wipeout Pure has been built upon in Pulse with the following additions:

• More tracks - 12 new ones
• More teams - 12 teams in total
• New Mag-strip track surface - Tracks can now have loops and super sharp turns.
• New weapons - Repulsor, shurikens and cannon
• Team loyalty system
• Adjustable AI difficulty
• Custom soundtracks
• Custom ship skin creator - via wipeout-game.com
• New tournament structure
• Photo mode - Take your own pretty pictures, as I did for this review
• On-line racing

Yep, on-line racing is there for the first time. Now I get my butt kicked on-line as well as off line and I can see just how slow my times are via the wipeout-game.com site Yay, I think. It is a welcome, if slightly overdue addition to the series.

The adjustable AI (easy, normal and hard) opens up a lot more of the game to most people. In the previous games, increasing the difficulty by increasing the speed resulted in few people actually completing all the tournaments. Now, at least, the Wipeout tourist setting (aka easy) allows you to experience the whole game. However, it doesn’t prepare you for the harsh reality of on-line racing though. For that set the difficulty to hard. Well, technically you need an evil setting (aka human) to be fully prepared.

It’s not all sugar and spice and all things nice in Pulse. To my mind the balance of time trials to races during tournaments is a bit off. There are simply too many time trials and not enough races. I like races, time trials are just boring. Also enough with the Zone races. I know this was quite a cool addition to Pure but Studio Liverpool had gone a bit OTT with the number of Zone races you have to complete. Tons of them, again with the boring.

It seems Sony have decided to start squeezing every last drop of coin out of Wipeout. How? Well, the previously free downloadable content for Pure now costs money in Pulse. These expansion packs vary in price from £1.99 to £3.49 (4 have been announced - Mirage and Icaras are available now). It’s another case of micro transaction infestation.

Finally, it’s a Wipeout game without any CoLD SToRAGE music. Bad, bad, bad. At least I can now create a customised soundtrack (something also available in Wipeout HD) with lots of my own CoLD SToRAGE tracks, so it’s not all lost in a savage pit of mire.

In summary: The best Wipeout game so far on any system.

Screenshots:

Wipeout Pulse is available now on PSP

Age Rating:

12 (BBFC)

What is it?

A Bioware RPG witha futuristic space-colony setting and third-person-cover combat

It is fun?

Hell, yes.

Is it worth the money?

(£39.99)

Yes, yes, yes. At £1 per hour, it’s very good value for money.

Why?

I love western-style RPGs. I love sci-fi settings. And I love taking cover during combat. I love Mass Effect. This game is almost made for me :)

There are flaws. I talked about Mass Effect’s dialogue issue back in December. The inventory interface is quite possibly the worst I’ve ever seen, as is the party selection menu. Still, I had so much fun playing the game itself that I don’t really care.

The Good:

• Purpose - You have actual goals throughout the game that aren’t simply “shoot everything in sight”. Sure, that’s generally the means to your end, but at least there’s a purpose behind it.
• Combat - The combat system is great. It’s like Gears of War but less frustrating. Gears feels like you’re wearing a huge chunk of magnetic armour and everything else is made of iron. Mass Effect gives you more control when running and it’s far easier to go around things.
• Breadth - You have a giant world to explore. This isn’t a sandbox game but you can spend hours just exploring the Citadel and pick up lots of side-quests
• A useful journal! Longtime readers will know, I’m a bit fanatic about RPG journals. This one does the job, though could have done with listing the target locations more prominently. Iinstead, you’re forced to open up every single item repeatedly, to find the nearby missions.
• Force powers Biotics - These mysterious powers are great fun. There’s a little something for everyone - healing, direct damage, disabling, shields, sharpshooting… I love it. None of them look quite as spectacular as KOTOR2’s Force Storm, but the combination of Lift and an assault-rifle-wielding teammate looks impressively violent.
• Advancement - I’m not sure if BioWare did a sneaky enemies-level-up-with-you but if they did, it was very subtle and much more satisfying than Oblivion. In Oblivion as you got more powerful, it never felt that way because even the lowliest grass-dwelling bandit mysteriously sprouted glass armour and would kick your sorry ass unless you specialised in combat. In Mass Effect, you can do the majority of the game in any order and it’s always challenging, but you still get the feeling of becoming more powerful.

The Bad:

• The interface and dialogue system. The interface will need a whole post to explain, so I’ll save that for another time. Just trust me, it’s rubbish.
• Uncharted worlds - These are fun to start with. The first time you get dropped on an uncharted world, it’s a breathtakingly beautiful scene. The next hundred and fifty seven times start to grate. Ultimately, the uncharted worlds all feel the same - drive around from way point to way point, drive in circles shooting something, fall off a mountain, find building, kill everyone, search back room (or for variety, upstairs back room), play unlocking mini-game, The End. But it’s the only way to get that level 50 achievement so, for some insane reason, I did them all. There’s no way I’m going for level 60 on another playthrough.
• Repetition - The endless combat in corridors for the main quest does get a little samey after a while.
• Achievements - If you collect gamerpoints compulsively, Mass Effect will swallow you for days. Assuming that you play as efficiently as possible, you’ll have to play the game all the way through twice and the middle four planets at least once more with different allies. Considering it took me around 40 hours to hit level 50 with almost all the sidequests, that’s something in the region of 80-100 hours to get all the gamerpoints. I’d advise you to rent Avatar: The Burning Earth instead, but you probably already did.
• Tower of Hanoi - Has BioWare ever made an RPG that didn’t feature the Tower of Hanoi? I’ve been solving this puzzle for at least 15 years now. I know it was in KOTOR and I’m sure I saw it in another BioWare game. Here’s a compromise; show us the puzzle and have a character ask what it is. If we answer Tower (or Towers) of Hanoi we get a free pass, okay?

In summary:

It’s a brilliant space-shooter RPG. Mass Effect would get my vote for Game of The Year 2007.

Mysteriously HUD-Free Screenshots

I suppose should be reasonably happy as our 360 has lasted since March 2006. Wow, that’s nearly 2 years. Hang on a minute, our 360 sits next to a working Gamecube and that’s 6 years old! Not forgetting my working PS2 (7 years old), PSOne (12 years old) and BBC Model B (22 years old).

Thoughts that crossed my mind when I saw the RRod:

• Arse, arse, arse.
• Wait, rebooting the console should sort out the problem, it is Microsoft after all.
• (After reboot) Arse.
• Eeek, what about my Xbox Live profile and my achievements/saved games?
• Phew, they are on the HDD, should be safe.
• But what if the HDD has died?
• Oh hell, Xbox Support. Weeks, maybe months without a 360, aggghhhh.
• Wait, my PS3 and Wii will do instead. Yay.

After further investigation using the Xbox-scene.com forums error code guide our secondary error code is 0102 which means:

Error in the “Digital Backbone” (CPU/GPU/RAM), this is usually caused by a cold solder joint between the GPU and the mainboard

Looks like I’ll have to get Microsoft to fix our console. Problem is that to date my experiences with Xbox Support have been awful. I’m still waiting for the saga of removing credit card details from my Xbox Live account to end.

Has anyone else had a 360 fail as it could involve up to 30% of consoles according to this RRoD article?

Update 21st Feb 08: 8.30am - Reports of our Xbox 360s death have been greatly exaggerated. Lazarus-like, it’s ALIVE! Woke up this morning, poked the power button and the 360 booted up fine. No RRoD, just the green ring of life. However, I’ve placed the 360 on death watch as I think it may fail again pretty soon. But for now, the 360’s back baby.

Update 21st Feb 08: 9am - Its died again. Sniff. I quickly downloaded some XNA creators club demos, turned off the 360 and then when I turned it back on the evil RRoD was back. Boo.

Update 26th Mar 08: It’s back from it’s trip to the Xbox repair centre and it’s ALIVE!!!! It took 2 weeks from sending it off to getting it back. Pretty speedy. The problem was the motherboard, as I suspected, so it has been replaced. Although the Xbox does sound different now, and emits a sound like a slightly asthmatic duck sleeping when you turn it off. Oh, and Microsoft included a free 1 months Xbox LIVE gold membership to sort of say sorry for the crappy 360 build quality.

Age rating:

16+ (PEGI)

What is it?

A 12th Century Grand Theft Auto, but with horses and parkour

Is it fun?

Yes.

Is it worth the money? £39.99

Yes.

Why?

Just for the sheer enjoyment of being totally submersed in a beautifully realised game world. This really is a game that you can play for hours and hours without really noticing. It’s quite easy to spend an entire day leaping around the rooftops, collecting flags (for gamer points on the 360) and killing guards. The whole thing is so much fun. Your character, Altaïr, has a wonderful array of moves at his disposal which allow you to climb and leap over pretty much anything. This is the main attraction of the game and provides many, many hours of climbing fun. Also as Altaïr gains more skills you really feel him develop into an incredibly lethal assassin. This coupled with a simple control method (with quite a bit of help from the game) results in some spectacular looking kills and moves.

However, it seems the effort of creating this beautiful environment has resulted in Ubisoft skimping on the game play. It all seems so fantastic at the start. You initially travel to a lovely looking city (by horse) and complete some or all of the following tasks:

• Climb all the viewpoints
• Save the citizens
• Eavesdrop on a conversation or two
• Pickpocket someone
• Collect a set number of flags within a time limit
• Kill 3-5 targets within a time limit
• Kill your main assassination target

And that’s it. Repeat about 11 times (4 cities x 3 main targets to assassinate) and then some battles at the end. Surprisingly, I didn’t find the crushing repetitiveness of the game play annoying at all. In fact, it was all quite relaxing. You see you don’t have to think about what to do next, you just know what to do. This means you can sit back, enjoy the scenery and get on with the killing. Oh, apart from the unbelievably annoying voice artists they hired for the beggar women. Grrr, after you’ve heard them beg for the 10,000th time it really does grate.

Also you can’t skip any of the dialogue in the game, and believe me there is A LOT OF DIALOGUE. It’s so bad that I used the talky-talky bits as bathroom/food/phone a mate breaks. What’s worse is that everyone’s an asshole. They are all thoroughly unpleasant people, even your character. I didn’t feel the slightest bit of empathy, or desire to help him in anyway.

Another gripe, is the totally unnecessary scenes set in the present day. You see, you are actually playing a game in a game. Not only is this silly and pointless, but you can’t do anything other than walk around 1 room and sleep in your bed. Why? I fail to see what this adds to the game other than to annoying you even more. Oh, yeah, everyone’s an asshole in the present day too.

And finally, it’s a next-gen game without a single quick time event (QTE). Oh, the joy!

In summary: A good game (even with its many flaws) that could have been an amazing game had the developers spent more time on the game play.

Screenshots:

Age rating:

7+ (PEGI)

What is it?

Another Zelda game.

Is it fun?

Yes.

Is it worth the money? £22.99

Yes.

Why?

So the mega franchise that is Zelda finally makes it to the DS. Therefore it must use the stylus, which to be honest, it does very well. Controlling Link is a breeze (after Zelda gets kidnapped, as usual) and so is using all the weapons that he collects along the way. Also the cell shaded graphics look pretty good too, with great use being made of the dual screens (especially during boss battles). But underneath these fine new clothes, beats the heart of every other Zelda game ever. Same moves, same puzzles, same temple based game structure and the same weapons. It’s all the same. Again.

Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed playing (most of) the Phantom Hourglass. It’s a game I’ve been wanting for ages (even bought a DS in preparation of it being released). But, there are some really annoying bits which keep recurring just to annoy you even more. Yes, I’m taking about you Mr Temple of the Ocean King. Whoever in Nintendo thought that making the player go through the same dungeon (temple) multiple times and against the clock, should be be forced to watch every Uwe Boll film. Forever. This single temple almost, and I say almost, ruined the entire game for me.

The are other problems too. The save system still sucks balls. It doesn’t quite save the game state, so you can’t resume part way though a temple. Instead you resume at set points throughout the map, sort of near where you last saved. But, isn’t meant to be a portable game? Play and save anywhere? Except you can’t, and because of this limitation I never once played through a temple whilst travelling. You can quite happily play the rest of the game, just not the temples. Also some of the puzzles (drawing ones mainly) are impossible to do unless you’re perfectly still.

Then you have the great little puzzles to solve and the fantastic boss battles. Drawing on the maps is a lovely addition and really helps the game as a whole, especially during each of the temples. Some of the cut sequences have some great comedy moments hidden inside them that just made me laugh. So there is lots of fun to be had from playing this game.

In summary:

It has all the good and bad bits of almost every Zelda game before it. If you’ve played one of those you won’t come across too many surprises in this DS version.

Screenshots

The Legend of Zelda - The Phantom Hourglass is out now

Here’s Bully according to the Telegraph:

The game, called Bully, features a shaven-headed pupil who torments fellow students and teachers at his school.

Coz shaven-headed pupil = EVIL, right? Just like kids wearing hooded tops are all gangsters. Please, get over your fashion prejudice.

And no, protagonist Jimmy Hopkins doesn’t torment anyone. He’s tormented by his fellow students. Most of the plot centres around helping other kids who are being bullied. Even if you wanted to, it’s actually quite difficult to pick fights with the prefects, teachers and policemen around every corner.

Players gain extra points by terrorising other pupils with a range of physical and psychological abuse, including dunking children’s heads in lavatories and firing catapults at teachers.

Extra points? Bully doesn’t even have a points system. Unless buying candy for girls in exchange for a kiss is now considered “psychological abuse”, the authors of this article are talking crap. A lavatory-dunking scene wouldn’t surprise me but if the first half of the game is anything to go by, the other kid deserved it.

Rated for children aged 15 and above, the game is being released for the XBox 360 and the Nintendo Wii, a games console on which players have to physically act out the movements they want their character to perform.

Physically acting out the movements… Good lord, people, at least TRY the Wii before you comment. Vaguely flailing your hands about with no resistance isn’t acting out a fight, as anyone who’s played Wii Boxing will know. I haven’t played the Wii version of Bully but it wouldn’t surprise me if the closest it came to acting out real life was the Workshop class on bicycle maintenance where you “turn” the pedals using the PS2 left analog stick.

And the game is rated 15 for heaven’s sake. 15! You know why it’s rated 15? Because BBFC professionals think it’s appropriate for 15-year-olds. If, as Jimmy, you fail to attend your classes, you’ll have fewer skills and abilities to get through the game. Each class is a series of non-violent minigames. Your days are spent collecting rubber bands, solving your teachers’ personal problems, safely escorting geeks through a violent schoolyard and standing up to gangs. Your nights are spent on nefarious deeds like panty raids on the girl’s dorm.

Yeah, I can see how this might undermine a charity’s efforts to stop kids joining groups that pick on others. Showcase a kid who doesn’t conform to the herd, fights for the underdog and stands up for himself and his friends? Heaven forfend…

Sure, Bully does feature weapons like a catapult, stink bombs and firecrackers. You can start fights and throw stuff at people; the only in-game reward is the privilege of being pursued by prefects and having your gear confiscated. Fighting other kids can be an entertaining diversion but without GTA’s validation of FBI helicopters and tanks, it quickly becomes tiresome.

Read the full Telegraph article: Video game glorifies bullying, say critics

Bully: Scholarship Edition (hopefully still featuring Monkey Fling) will be released in the UK on March 7th.