So despite having booked an expensive holiday that I can only just afford, I somehow still manage to find the money lying around to splash out on all (most) of the awesome games I want. It’s a great life, living on the cusp of being broke and having enough money to pay my rent and eat, though when I do things like book holidays and buy games all the time, being in a perpetual state of getting by isn’t such a strenuous thing to endure. So let’s see which games I’ve got my mitts on at the moment…
Call of Duty: Black Ops came out last November, which means its pretty late for it to be reviewed with any real purpose other than just to talk about it, but that’s what we’re all about here on BcR anyway, so why the hell not, eh?
While I’m on the subject of game demos today, I might as well mention the Crysis 2 demo too. Sadly, it’s only a multiplayer demo, and really, who wants a fucking multiplayer demo of a predominantly single player game? I don’t care about leveling up my persistent character before I get the full game, I’ll do it when own the full thing. I want to shoot some aliens in Times Square first! Anyway, with my frustrated mini-rant over, read on for a quick opinion on the demo gameplay itself.
I downloaded the Bulletstorm demo the other day and had a quick run through, because I was certain it was going to be awesome fun. With phrases like “dick-tits!” and “son of a dick!” uttered by the NPCs every now and then, how on Earth could it not be fun?
Singularity was largely ignored when it released in June last year, but after an impressive-looking trailer and finding out Raven Software (Soldier of Fortune 2, Quake 4) were behind it, I had enough reason to be intrigued. However, thanks to Activision’s new policy of “ignore it if it isn’t Call of Duty”, the game whimpered onto the market and sold about 7 copies. It took me until Steam’s Christmas sale to buy it because it wasn’t in any stores and the ones that did have it were stupidly overpriced, even online. Its a real pity because here is a game that has clearly been influenced by some of the most high-profile first-person shooters in recent years, and has managed to develop their ideas into a solid, entertaining experience, and one that deserves an audience.
Who needs New Years Resolutions anyway? A sensible one for me to make would have been “stop playing 12 games at the same time”, but no such vow was made and here I am yet again with multiple games on the go. I’ve been trekking through New Vegas since it was released, and still haven’t seen everything in the wasteland. I bought Need for Speed Hot Pursuit and the GTA 4 collection during the amazing Steam christmas sales – I have barely touched the former, but i did finally play through the latter – after starting Niko Bellic’s story 3 times in the past, I have at long last seen how it ends and I utterly loved it. Meanwhile, Singularity is proving to be a fun mish-mash of various modern shooter ideas rolled together to create something new. And then there’s that quaint MMO expansion that a few people are playing lately. Apparantly it has a dragon in it…
Today I saw for the first time this video about the incredible facial animation technology for the upcoming LA Noire, Rockstar Games’ soon-to-arrive, gritty looking crime thriller. The game, from what I’ve read and seen, allows you to see real live emotions through the faces of the characters in the game, and allows for a whole new element of realistic, lie-detecting gameplay, adding an incredibly realistic new angle to the concept of a crime solving game. I can’t wait to see this in action in the full game, but until then I’ll just have to be content with seeing amazing videos like this one:
100 posts and still not dead! Yes, we’ve reached a milestone, and to celebrate we decided to finish the site. Since we began, Paul and myself wanted a page dedicated to all the games we’ve ever looked at, specifically to rank them in order of awesomeness. We came up with a name, and a concept for it, and then ignored it for about 8 months. Then last week with the 100th post looming, we decided enough was enough, and the time has come to open The Tower…
It’s finally coming… Duke Nukem Forever release date marked as May 3rd 2011. Watch this awesome trailer and be amazed! Hail to the king, baby.
How would you like to play a demo of a new DS game by the makers of Pheonix Wright? Of course you would. And you don’t even need a DS to play this one, as Gamespot have a convenient little Flash version over on their site. The Pheonix Wright games are some of the most fun puzzle adventure games out there full of amusing characters and lots of mystery. Ghost Trick looks and feels very familiar, but its unique game mechanic of possessing inanimate objects to solve puzzles feels pretty entertaining from this short demo. Go here and have a look.
Along with dozens of other impulse-purchases thanks (or no thanks) to the recent Christmas sale on Steam, we decided to get our hands on the entire GTA IV collection for about £6 in December, which right now has ended up being one of the best decisions we made last year. Why? The GTA IV video editor, that’s why! Next stop, Hollywood.
And there we have it. Our Top Ten Games of 2010. Click below to see the full list.