Far Cry 2 Retrospective (Ubisoft, Xbox 360, PS3, PC)

Join The Shed, as we take a fond look back at one of the most divisive games in recent memory. Some love it for the challenge and the majesty of its African setting, while others hate it for being hard as nails and relentlessly unforgiving. Whatever your take on Far Cry 2 might be, you've got to admit, it's a hell of a feat and one hell of a game. Read on...

Anyone with even a casual interest in news and world events will know that Africa is a troubled nation, rife with disease and famine. What you may not know is that absolutely everyone carries a gun, drive jeeps with rear-mounted machine gun turrets and follow you relentlessly in a bid to kill you dead for no apparent reason.

OK, so that might not be true – in fact we’re certain that it’s not – but it is the Africa portrayed in Far Cry 2, where there are virtually no innocent civilians and the world is the most hostile and unforgiving you’re ever likely to encounter. Even the wildlife is far friendlier then the people. You could say Far Cry 2 is the all-time worst advertisement for Africa. Play the game for an hour and it’ll put you off ever wanting to go there for a lifetime.

You play as a shady mercenary who finds himself infected with malaria and working for various factions for your own personal ends. Amidst the deception and playing factions off one another, your goal is to kill The Jackal, a despotic weapons dealer who’s responsible for most of the conflict erupting in the surrounding areas. As such it’s up to you to locate The Jackal and take him down by whatever means necessary. Your first port of call is with The Underground, where you’ll be given invaluable malaria tablets that stave off your horrible mind-altering malarial pangs. You’re later introduced to weapons depots where you can spend any of the 200-odd diamonds found scattered all over the gameworld on new and more reliable guns. You’ll also meet a couple of helpful buddies that will help you out of tough situations later on in the game or alternatively, get themselves kidnapped prompting either a rescue mission or a brief sigh of indifference as you abandon them in captivity while you continue on your journey.

First, more on Far Cry 2’s weapons, of which there are many. You have two primary options when acquiring weaponry. You can either scavenge rusty old guns from enemies and end up carrying an arsenal prone to jamming during heated battles, or you can buy your weapons brand new from the weapon merchant, which means hijacking weapon convoys to unlock more guns for sale. It’s the latter option that proves the most sensible as salvaged weapons can suffer from severe unreliability issues and there’s nothing more annoying than having your AK-47 jam while surrounded by a rag tag band of mercs all intent on turning you into Swiss cheese. Incidentally, it’s at this precise moment that you’ll usually be assaulted by hallucinogenic malarial spasms, obscuring your view and sending you into panic mode. A stab of the left bumper is all that’s required to administer a malaria pill, but during a heated firefight, this can be a royal pain in the arse.

And there’s certainly no shortage of fraught gunplay throughout the course of Far Cry 2’s campaign to take down the morally dubious antagonist of the game, The Jackal. Apparently, The Jackal has issued the entire population of Africa with your picture and orders to kill on site, as almost every NPC you encounter in the wilderness will open fire in your direction. Even the most innocuous looking situation can be read wrongly, like one instance where we found ourselves out on a deserted dirt track when a small car approached in the opposite direction. Just one man driving said car looked innocent enough, when all of a sudden he jumped out brandishing a machine gun. Still one well-aimed bullet to the head sent him on his way to hell. This kind of thing is a common occurence in FC2, as everyone hates you.

This is but one example of the kind of blind hostility you regularly encounter in Far Cry 2’s unforgiving, brutal world. It’s accepted that you’re a hunted man, but FC2 takes it from the sublime to the ridiculous, throwing constant waves of enemies your way in a seemingly random fashion. Yet, this is really the only major negative in a game that stands as a quite astonishing achievement. FC2’s game world is not only incredibly vast, but possesses a majestic visual fidelity that makes traversing its jungles and stretches of savannah a real pleasure. There may be a great deal of repetition inherent in the game’s missions (especially the side quests), but then the landscape is so stunningly realised, so beautiful to behold that these structural shortcomings can be easily forgiven. When you’re driving along a desert road to destroy yet another enemy compound, the God rays flickering through the trees, the desert rain falling as zebras gallop alongside your vehicle make it a pleasant ride despite the fact you’re repeating a similar mission to the one you finished mere minutes earlier.

Far Cry 2’s beauty lies not only in its breathtaking vistas, but also in the explosive destruction you can wreak upon your enemies. You’ll often find yourself infiltrating enemy compounds to off a certain target as part of a contract, and in these instances your initial instinct is to favour a stealthy approach. The instances in which sneaking works in your favour are few and far between however and more often than not you’ll be found out, subsequently alerting every single person in the area. We found that it’s far more effective and fun to drive into the middle of the compound, mount a turret and blast the crap out of any explosives you lay your eyes upon. Doing this normally starts a few fires, which will flush out any enemies who you can then pick off one by one. Chuck in a Molotov for good measure and you can watch the flames propagate across the grass, up trees and through buildings. In minutes you’ll have reduced the zone to a smouldering heap of debris that you can now explore at your leisure. Works every time.

Ubisoft Montreal has crafted a game that they hoped would deal with adult problems, topical, important issues about poverty in Africa and so on. On this front Far Cry 2 is only a partial success. The Africa depicted therein is nothing like the Africa you see on the news and we refuse to believe that it is anything like what we’ve seen in Far Cry 2. Nevertheless, as a game Far Cry 2 is more successful although it is unbelievably frustrating and seemingly insurmountable at times. Enemy AI is often pretty dubious, with some blowing themselves up or running around like headless chickens. The sheer scale of the environment can seem very intimidating too and the moment you unlock the second half of the map, your jaw will hit the floor.

Forget about Far Cry 2’s veneer of unflinching realism and political commentary to just focus on the outrageous game beneath that allows you to set fire to anything that burns and you'll have loads of fun. Throw a few Molotovs around, blow everything to smithereens, and torch everything to cinders. Only then will you truly appreciate what Far Cry 2 is all about.

Score: 7/10

Resi 5 demo: WTF?!

What the fuck is going on?
Is Resident Evil 5 a return to the old ways of the series - riding a good thing into the fucking ground?
I'm disappointed, even angry with the designers.
Nasty Fuckin Splitscreen


I can't believe they would do something this amateur. It looks SHIT. Makes it almost unplayable, no joke. Aiming, finding items, avoiding enemies, reading text, navigating menus - all a nightmare. Thought it might be a demo specific thing but this shot makes me think otherwise. Sigh.

The Controls
I'm a fan but this game highlights the need for some tweaks. More enemies, faster enemies, stronger enemies - bring em on, but don't make the shit UNBALANCED. Simple alterations would make a huge improvement.
Running with the analogue stick - shit is pressure sensitive, so fuckin use it. Running with a button held down feels a bit lame now - turning at speed is difficult, trapped on scenery, the usual problems. I'm not asking to be a gymnast, but come on...
Shooting and moving - damn this would improve things 50%. A slow walk wouldn't tip the scales in your favour but it would allow you to maneuver out of tight confines. Playing Dead Space I thought 'this is heavily influenced by Resi 4'. Playing Resi 5 I'm thinking 'this should have been influenced by Dead Space'. That game had the balance just right.
Personalised controller setup - should be able to assign that shit how I like it, not be given 4 different options, none of which are useful.






The Inventory
Again, I gotta look to Dead Space and tip my hat. If you're gonna do that real time menu shit, do it right. Allow me to move whilst I'm selecting items, allow me to select, use, give items quickly. Or alternatively...STICK WITH THE MOTHERFUCKIN ATTACHE CASE. I was a fan, now its gone forever. I liked having that calculated pause to sort my shit mid-battle. I liked spinning a first aid spray to stuff it in there. Granted it wouldn't work very well in co-op, one guy spinning herbs whilst the other guy combines ammo. Wait...maybe that would make a good little minigame. Fuck you Capcom.

About the ONLY thing I can say that's a definite improvement is using the D-pad to quick switch between guns. Nice.
What the fuck, my enthusiasm has dried the fuck up.
Maybe I won't be riding into town to buy this on release day anymore.
Fuck.

Landon Garrett for The Shed.

This week in my world

This week we have a slightly late Street Fighter IV review on play.tm that can now also be seen at http://www.playboy.co.uk/ Nice, no?

On Strategy Informer we have a chat with Maxim Bodrikov, lead designer behind Elven Legacy and we preview the game too.

There's also an interview with Hearts of Iron III's Lead Programmer, Johann Andersson for your delectation.

Next up, a review of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand and some exciting news about DLC for Midnight Club LA.

Until next week, friends...

Rich chats to Yuji Naka

Check out http://www.play.tm/ soon for our interview with Yuji Naka regarding Prope: his new company, and his innovative new control method for Let's Tap on the Wii!

Also on play.tm, a review of House of the Dead Overkill later this week.

On http://www.strategyinformer.com/ there's a review of Monolith's eagerly anticipated F.E.A.R. follow up and a preview of Wanted: Weapons of Fate.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Review: Mass Effect (2007. Bioware. Xbox 360)

A space opera with grand ambitions meets a writer with none. Can an RPG-phobe get to grips with a detailed sci-fi universe? Space-time was invested and Landon emerged from his gaming hypersleep 200 years later; a better man with hope for the future of gaming.

Way back in May 2007 Landon Garrett danced with Elder Scrolls IV:Oblivion and was unable to find his feet. He tripped and fell over and felt cheated by his ogre of a date. Yet there was light at the end of the mountain pass. To quote, he wrote: "Mass Effect...could be the RPG I've been waiting for. Maybe I'll be able to get my character drunk in some crazy spaceport nightclub. Maybe it'll be my entry ticket." Flash forward 10 months and Landon has been fulfilled and surprised by an RPG that welcomed him into an unfamiliar gaming fold, offering him food and shelter and sex with alien races.

Sadly it's not possible to fall off your bar stool in Mass Effect, but you can enjoy erotic nightclub dancing. Developing games is all about making compromises, it seems. Thankfully, ME compromises little. Original ideas abound and characters are painted vividly - whatever else you get out of the game you'll definitely be left with some strong memories.

I, YOU, WE...are Mass Effect
Nowadays most games give you a choice of creating a 'unique' avatar - it's pretty much industry standard. A limited choice of stock heads with optional beards is a step in the right direction but it's easy not to be saddened by such shallow thought. Mass Effect's character creation tool is in-depth in the same way that Oblivion's was, except with a slightly more limited range to create hideous freaks. Male or female, you decide - it's worth taking the time to tweak your look before you begin; by the end of the game you'll have analysed your minor flaws from all angles. Hopefully though, these flaws will become a part of your character's identity in a way you never thought possible.

As well as creating a look for your Commander Shepard you also choose a backstory and a combat class for her/him, all of which resonate into the story in subtle ways throughout the game's run time of 20+ hours. Identifying with your character is also down to the choices you make in the moment. The basic principle asks you to travel one of two roads: Paragon or Renegade (or if you crave chaos, a schizophrenic blend of the two). Interaction in Mass Effect's universe is conducted with an intuitive 'conversation wheel' that gives you quick dialogue options at the touch of the analogue stick. The fresh touch here is that you direct the tone of the conversation. Diplomatic, hostile or neutral questions/responses open up branching dialogue, often in unexpected ways. It's a nice system and largely avoids blank repetition unless you call for it, mostly due to superb voice acting and a commendable lack of expositional writing. The characters that populate the planets, bases and walkways of the galaxy are always coloured by personal bias and opinion, something so rarely seen in games and so well handled here. Most conversations, no matter how trivial in terms of the plot, will tell you something about the world you're living in. The combination of all these elements create a rich and very personal protagonist for the plot to orbit around.

From the hub of The Citadel to the farthest outreach planets, most of the environments are unique and thoughtful in their design and dripping in craft and finish - a couple of levels in particular are mind-blowing. You'll work your way through these places in well-paced story missions but naturally you have the option to get lost in the abundance of side-quests on offer. It has to be said that most of these are an exercise in levelling up your Shepard with experience, new items and that all-important ca$h (much more than you can spend, it's a bit like Brewster's Millions). That said, a handful of these tributaries do flesh out your chosen character's story and those of your rag-tag crew, and give a taste of scale and vision. Standing on a planet's hilltop gazing into the stars at a distant asteroid storm is a beautiful sight, enough to bring a tear to any sci-fi lover's eye.

This isn't an RPG!
Some RPG veterans will be disgruntled that the combat in ME is real-time and not turn-based. Most humans (chiefly Landon) will celebrate this new hybrid of light-strategy and shooter skills, as it is more immediate and visceral. The Unreal 3 engine sets a now familiar tone - aim, shoot, take cover, flank. It's light on any real deep strategy but each chosen member of your crew has a talent to bring to the fight and before long you'll have mastered a playing style that works for you. The squad dynamics can be a lot of fun and the wide choice of combat styles on offer for Shepard mean repeat playthroughs will be distinct. Slick weapons and technology sit comfortably alongside physics abilities, or 'biotics' - ME's equivalent to magic and one of the most enjoyable additions to the action mix. Such powers are, as always with ME, incorporated into the story itself and the world around it with grace and fine dustings of detail.

Every silver cloud has a dark lining
ME swells and overflows with ideas and potential and so it's no great shock that not all of it is realised. Graphically the game is superb but too frequently suffers from slow texture loading. It seems to be a common occurrence in these early days of the current generation, but here it really takes you out of the moment and breaks the spell the game works so hard to weave. Many of the games planets are barren and bland in a fashion that makes exploration feel repetitive, different colours and textures stretched over the same peaks and valleys. The identikit human outposts and colonies you repeatedly encounter can be explained away (just about) in context as pre-fab contractor's work and when they're situated in some often stunning landscapes it's hard to complain big; but still, when you're hearing the same music underscoring a similar encounter it's a sour déjà vu. The item menus are confusingly designed and often mean you're left carrying far too much equipment, most of which will be multiples of the same items. Most of these negatives can be overlooked though, it's only in retrospect that we mention them - whilst playing they won't stand in the way of progress or enjoyment.

DLC and beyond
It came as sour news recently that downloadable expansion missions can only be played if you are midway through the game. Wouldn't it have been a better idea to let the completists get involved too? Having invested so much time crafting a character - in look and personality - naturally one might want to experience new missions with them and continue the saga. We guess this is what they call repeat-play value, but in this case it seems to have a hidden catch.

Landon loved his female Shepard so much, became so attached to her, that if not given the option to play a sequel with her in it, he would seriously think twice about doing so. A lot of the Shed's goodwill toward this game is because we connected emotionally with our characters and believed in the world they inhabited. The experience is so personal, it could almost make a gamer hesitant to play through a second time.
There is something so brilliant about seeing your character in game - talking, interacting and leading the focus of an interesting plot. Bioware have done an exemplary job of tailoring the experience. The Shed only hope that this personal touch can be continued into future instalments.

Bioware have created an engaging and unique game world that draws the player in and allows them an admirable level of choice with genuine consequences. For that alone the studio have earned their seat on the Citadel council. But the flipside of such an accomplishment is that the player almost expects too much and it is easy to pick apart the less than exemplary aspects of ME. However, we cannot measure a game by our own expectations. That ME raises our expectations to such heights is testament to Bioware's accomplishment. They have deftly avoided the pitfalls of the genre and crafted a worthy piece of art. This isn't Star Wars, this isn't Star Trek - this is Mass Effect.

Galactic Standard Points: 8/10

Review: Condemned: Criminal Origins (Xbox 360. Monolith, Sega)

Those of a sensitive nature should look away now. Condemned is not for the faint-hearted. Assuming the role of Ethan Thomas, a fugitive fed who’s been framed for murder, your mission is to track the real killer and clear your name. Your pursuit will take you through some truly dilapidated areas, inhabited by violent crack heads and depraved, crowbar wielding sociopath types. During your hunt for the sadistic murderer known only as Serial Killer X (or SKX for short), you’ll take in a variety of relentlessly dark and uninviting environments. Taking their visual cue from the serial killer movie Se7en, most of the levels are rendered in different shades of brown and grey - sometimes greeny-brown but always pitch black and always pant-wettingly scary. Thank god then that you have a flashlight with infinite battery power to rely upon, because without it, you’re utterly screwed. Mercifully, you can also pick up any blunt instrument you may happen upon, be it a pipe, plank, crowbar, shovel, sledge hammer, fire axe or paper cutter (ouch!) they’re all available for you to visit your own brand of horrific mutilation upon the slew of manic, flailing pariahs that stalk you throughout the game’s ten chapters. There are also a paltry number of firearms for your delectation, although none of them are much cop with their limited ammo. The game’s melee weapons are more than adequate however and will easily see you through the compelling, twisty, twisted narrative. As a 360 launch title, Condemned is now showing its age graphically but it still stands up as a fantastic game, which bodes well for the forthcoming sequel, out 14th March. Condemned constantly shocks and surprises with grisly moments, surreal monochrome scenes fighting demons inside Ethan's fractured psyche and an accomplished script that successfully keeps you hooked until the very end. Factor in the light CSI style investigative elements where Ethan can collect evidence and you have a unique FPS. We just hope that these crime scene bits are expanded upon for the sequel because they do tend to be a little on the simplistic side.

Still, Condemned is a brutal, terrifying experience that will give you nightmares for weeks on end. Heartily recommended then.
Well worth suffering the cold sweats: 8/10

Xbox 360 exclusive Gears Of War 2 announced at GDC 08.

Polish up your chainsaw bayonet and strap yourself into your bulky body armour because Gears Of War 2 is on its way. Epic's announcement at this years Games Developers Conference by studio president Mike Capps has got us salivating at the prospect of a sequel to 2006's best game and what many gamers consider to be the 360's finest title overall. Gears 2 will utilise Epic's Unreal Engine 3, the very same engine that brought Rapture to horrifying life in Bioshock and has since given us hulking great space marines blasting one another into chunky offal in Unreal Tournament III (out today). Specific details on the game are scant, but we can expect gameplay mechanics and screenshots to be slowly drip-fed in the run up to GOW 2's slated November release date. Until then we can look forward to spending our holiday season with Mr. Fenix and associates. Yeah!

Movie Review: Cloverfield (February, 2008)

What do we know about Cloverfield? We know that it's a monster movie from JJ Abrams, the man who brought us Alias and is still melting our brains with Lost. He's hot property in Hollywood right now, which is why he's been entrusted with bringing the highly anticipated Star Trek prequel to the big screen. But first, he's brought us this curio. A movie that for all intents and purposes is Blair Witch via Godzilla. It's what would happen if in real life, if a giant monster went on a rampage through New York and it had been filmed by an amateur cameraman. Well, that's the idea anyway. The big question is – does it work? The answer? A big yes.
Opening with a strangely voyeuristic sequence between main character Rob and girlfriend Beth, we’re immediately drawn into these people’s lives. This is further developed in the subsequent party where Rob and his too-beautiful friends are gathered to wish him a fond farewell as he leaves for Japan. It’s during this opening that you’ll probably make your mind up about Cloverfield’s approach. Reports have been circulating that punters have been walking out feeling sick because they couldn’t handle the motion of the camera as it whirls around the party from person to person as Hud (a name that is maybe a reference to the abbreviation for Heads Up Display, the on-screen furniture you use in First Person Shooters. Or maybe not) records the goodbye messages of Rob’s friends. Get through the movie's opening however and you’re on-track for a real treat. You inexplicably find yourself lulled into participating in the party; even if you’re not entirely convinced by the actor’s performances it’s unavoidable. You forget that disaster will inevitably strike and it’s at this point that it arrives with a bang. When Cloverfield gets started, it doesn’t let up. For the entire duration of the movie you’re placed into Hud’s shoes, wherever he goes, we go too, whether we like it or not.
Pedants will hate Cloverfield. They’ll ask how the sound can be so good on a handheld camera? Why does Hud suddenly become able to hold the camera nice and steady in the heat of an attack when he was struggling to hold the camera straight at the party minutes earlier? How come the group are the only ones in the whole of New York City to think the subway would be a good place to hide? You could go on and end up ultimately missing the point entirely. Cloverfield is essentially a Hollywood action movie and none of these pedantic questions matter when it manages to be such an entertaining one. What makes Cloverfield special is the same thing that made The Blair Witch Project unique almost ten years earlier: the visceral experience of being centre stage of incredibly frightening and ostensibly real events. The documentary style works well here, even if the fictional document involves a bizarre creature tearing a city apart, decapitating treasured national monuments and being an all-round nasty blighter. What’s important is that it feels real and never staged, you believe in the characters; believe that they were subjected to these terrifying proceedings and the images of NYC being destroyed, covering the population in dust and debris are still incredibly powerful even six years on from September 11th. The shock and awe of rumbling explosions erupting in enormous plumes of orange flame also recall the harrowing footage of the attacks on Iraq. But then perhaps we’re reading too much into Cloverfield, which at its core is a good action movie that has some truly great moments and few bad ones. There are flaws that may irritate some, but they’re easily ignored. Cloverfield is best enjoyed at the biggest cinema you can find: it looks stunning and sounds exceptional. Well worth watching.
****

Slimline PS3 revealed.

As is always de rigeur with Sony's games consoles, the PlayStation 3 is next in line to lose some extra pounds with a new slim and lite model. Following on from the slim and lite PSP launched last year, the new slimline PS3 looks kind of like a Wii with an extra bit stuck onto the side. As these new shots (shamelessly stolen from T3.com) show, the new PS3 favours a very minimalistic approach, shedding all USB ports and memory card slots for a cleaner, crisper finish.

Available this autumn in sexy satin silver, the new PS3 looks lovely but doesn't quite have the bulky "look-at-how-powerful-I-am" shiny black presence of the original PS3. However, speculative rumblings suggesting this could be the much-touted 160GB model lend this redesign some extra credibility, making it a more desirable console rather than a mere gimmicky overhaul. One could argue that this was the case with the psone, pstwo and PSP slim & lite, which were simply pared-down versions of their forebears with no major extra features to speak of.

Here's hoping that Sony manage to squeeze in the rumoured 160GB into the new PS3's slender shell and give consumers a genuine reason to splash their cash towards the end of this year.

For more on the PS3 slim and lite, visit www.t3.com

Review: The Orange Box (PS3, Xbox 360 (version played), PC. Valve, EA)

Value for money is a rare thing to discover when buying games. Sure you can pick up a two-year-old game pre-owned for a tenner if you shop around or you could get The Orange Box - the biggest bargain ever to hit the shelves of your local games emporium. What Valve have packed onto one tiny disc is nothing short of miraculous. One of the most compelling sci-fi sagas ever to grace the PC comes to consoles packed to the gills with brand new extra content, to make up a simply mind-blowing proposition. So, in order to accommodate the sheer candy store of delectable gaming goodness on offer here, this review will be split into three sections - one for each game. Simple really.

Half Life 2, Episode 1 and Episode 2
Half Life 2 is the Godfather Part II of videogame sequels. Epic in scope and narrative heft, the game follows on from the original incident at the Black Mesa facility. Silent hero Gordon Freeman returns, ready to beat zombies and marauding head crabs into pate with his trusty crowbar. The first thing you need to know about HL 2 is that it is an unparalleled masterpiece - the perfect marriage of relentless action and story that is perfectly paced and balanced. Visually, HL 2 may showing its age a tad - the game is over 3 years old now, but still looks sprightly thanks to the superlative Source game engine. Gaming pedants may baulk at the relatively low-res textures in the first two games, but there's no faulting the quality of Episode 2's graphical finesse - it looks stunningly silky smooth, especially compared to its predecessors.

Set in the shadow of City 17 where the omnipresent Dr. Breen spouts looped propaganda on gigantic screens from on high, there’s an unshakable feeling of genuine oppression pervading every inch of Half Life 2. Soldiers line the streets keeping the population in order, their crackling radio speech an ever-present noise whilst rebels hide out in deserted, burnt out buildings. It’s such a fantastically well-realised environment that fully succeeds in embroiling the player within its universe. Whether you’re fighting the Combine in a derelict building or squashing Antlions on a beach, the world is consistently solid and believable, so accomplished is the fine attention to detail.
There are some well-drawn characters in HL 2 too; strongest of these is love interest Alyx who is thankfully quite handy with a gun. You’ll need her in Episode 1 if you want to attain the One Free Bullet achievement on the 360 version of the game (we did – it’s not that difficult) and her AI is advanced enough to be helpful in a tough situation. She’s not much good when you’re trying to squeeze through a doorway though, but then she does apologise for getting in your way – bless. Barney and Dr. Kleiner return from the previous game to lend a helping hand and are welcome familiar faces. Most surprising of all though is the connection you feel to Freeman himself as he interacts with NPCs, you’re given a real sense of importance and purpose. By keeping Freeman mute, you’re able to soak up the words of those around you, listening and simultaneously gaining a real sense that your role is of major significance. Everywhere you go the city’s survivors will recognise you reinforcing Freeman's status as an almost mythical saviour of mankind. It’s incredible how Valve have achieved this – think of another FPS where you can remember experiencing an actual connection to the protagonist. Exactly.

Let’s get physic-al
Interaction is the watchword for Half Life 2. Boasting some stimulating physics-based puzzles aided by the indispensable Gravity Gun, the game really comes into its own. Every object can be manipulated in some way and each item reacts in exactly the way you'd expect them to in the real world. Break a wooden strut supporting a platform of oil drums for instance and the barrels will come crashing to the ground and roll all over the shop - exactly like they're supposed to - demostrating the exceptional Havok physics engine at work. It sounds like a minor feature but it isn't, it elevates the game to levels lesser shooters can only dream of. Lifting objects with the Grav Gun means everything can be treated as a potential weapon as you can hurl lifted objects with a stab of the right trigger. A well-aimed paint-can will blind a zombie or a high velocity breezeblock ricocheted off an enemy's bonce will kill it instantly. Brilliantly, there are some levels that give you circular-saw blades to play with. You don't have to be a genius to know that sending jagged frisbees of death towards enemies and cleaving them in two bloody lumps of offal is massive fun. Half Life 2 also rewards players for lateral thinking and there are plenty of opportunities to flex your grey matter as there are some fairly involving conundrums peppered throughout the game. We won't go into any of these as it'll ruin the fun, suffice to say, there are some satisfying head scratchers to overcome along the way.
These tasks are counter-balanced by a glut of incredible action-packed set pieces where you'll get to give the games weapons a good workout. Freeman's armoury consists of the usual pistols, machine guns, rocket launchers and so on, but each feels spot-on. The sub-machine gun sprays hot lead and kicks like a mule and toppling (frightening) Striders with the rocket launcher is every bit as thrilling as you'd expect. Every set piece also outlasts the game's end living on in the memory. You'll never forget the first time you bring down a Combine ship, your first encounter with a Strider or thrashing around in your buggy sending soldiers flying over your front bumper. It's all gaming gold.

Variety is the spice of Half Life - there’s always something fresh to challenge and engage so you’re never left wanting. If Half Life 2 were a meal (lazy analogy alert), it would be a big Sunday lunch. A substantially meaty storyline, a hearty weapons stuffing and a hefty steaming ladle-full of action gravy.
In conclusion, HL 2 and the accompanying Episode 1 and 2 are peerless chunks of cerebral first-person action gaming and despite HL 2’s age, that it still puts the majority of its genre stablemates to shame is testament to the inherent depth and longevity you'll find. Everything about Half Life 2 is fully realised, wholly imagined, flawlessly executed – there isn’t a single bum note in the game. In a word: pure genius.

Portal
As an expansion of the Narbacular Drop concept dreamt up by the DigiPen Institute of Technology, Portal is the simplest of concepts, but makes for the most intriguing puzzle game you’ll ever play. The idea is so straightforward that you’ll be amazed no one ever thought to make a game out of it until now. An explanation then for the uninitiated – Portal casts you in the role of a test subject put through a series of situations that make use of the Aperture Science portal gun. The function of the gun is to create two portals one entrance, one an exit. Launching a pair of portals, one orange, one blue, to avoid confusion, allows you to enter one and exit the other. From this central premise there’s a range of possibilities and ways to solve Portal’s brainteasers. Further possibilities are unlocked when you learn that falling through a portal builds up velocity meaning that you can shoot out the other side at speed to clear gaps and make high jumps. Add to the mix, energy balls that you can manipulate to open doors, gun turrets that will hamper your progress and the sure to become iconic companion cubes that prove crucial at certain junctures and you’ve a recipe for a varied first-person puzzler.
Between them, the brains at DigiPen- employed to build on their original idea - and Valve have crafted a refreshingly unique and novel game with a dark, deadpan humour all of its own (what’s all this stuff about cake?) It may be short, but it’s incredibly sweet and the most rewarding game you’ll have played in a long time. In fact it's better than the majority of shooters masquerading as full games at full price.

Team Fortress 2
The Orange Box’s online component arrives in the form of long, long, long awaited shoot-em’-up sequel Team Fortress 2. Boasting a quirky cartoon style, Team Fortress 2 looks stunning and thankfully plays as good as it looks. Choosing from nine different classes the aim is to blast the crap out of your opposition. No surprises there then. Each class is what gives TF 2 its edge. You’ll quickly develop a favourite, as each possesses a unique set of abilities.
Sadly, at time of writing we’ve yet to play TF 2 extensively so expect a thorough play-test when we’ve bought ourselves a wireless adapter bridge for our 360. (How much?!)

Overall, The Orange Box represents fantastic value for money. It also happens to be one of the finest FPS experiences you’re ever likely to come across. To ignore it is to do Valve and yourself a massive disservice. Buy. It. Now.
Verdict: 10/10

BioShock (Xbox 360, PC. 2K Boston, 2K Games)

It’s very rare that a game manages to successfully evoke a genuine sense of time and place, especially within an entirely fictional framework. BioShock sets its narrative in Rapture: an undersea utopia gone spectacularly wrong. A city that upon first sight appears majestic and inviting until BioShock’s compelling story begins to unfold and the reality behind the imposing statues and tall buildings quickly unravels before your very eyes. BioShock’s intro is one of the most jaw dropping we’ve ever seen. Beginning on an ill-fated plane journey, you wake up underwater struggling to make your way to the surface. Emerging from beneath the briny deep, you’re surrounded by bright orange flames and the disheartening sight of your plane gradually sinking out of view. The only place to go is the gigantic, foreboding black tower nearby. Apprehensive, you swim towards it. Who knows what waits for you within? It’s a humdinger of an opening that has you instantly immersed from the very second the game begins and the ensuing, serpentine plot is enough that you’re certain to be hooked throughout.
The strongest element of BioShock is its uniquely bold visual design. Utilising Epic’s much vaunted Unreal Engine 3, 2K Boston have crafted a solid and believable, intricate art deco styled nightmare filled with incidental details like 30’s styled propaganda posters, neon store fronts with twee slogans and haunting melodies of old, familiar songs. There are scenes of corrosion and desolation almost everywhere you go – exposed pipes spike out through cracked, rotting tiles, corpses lie against walls covered in thick, congealed blood. The devil here is most definitely in the details. With every surface of Rapture encrusted in filth or rust, the textures are so rich and tangible that you can almost taste the decay. BioShock is a visual tour de force and candidate for best-looking game on 360.

Walking around Rapture is simultaneously awe-inspiring and patently unsettling as hideously disfigured inhabitants known as Splicers threaten to pounce at any moment. Given that they too have had the same horrific graphical attention lavished upon them, they are truly terrifying – leaping towards you, screaming with fixed grimaces upon their clownish, surgically altered visages. Thankfully there’s plenty of weaponry and a steady supply of ammunition lying around in every crevice, desk drawer and cupboard in Rapture meaning that you’re seldom ill-equipped. Unfortunately, while this makes BioShock a lot of fun to play, it slightly drains the air of dread that pervades from the outset. After all, there’s always a checkpoint activating Vita Chamber where you can respawn an infinite number of times. Having the additional luxury of being able to save anywhere means that you’ll virtually never have to play through the same situation twice. While it keeps frustration to a minimum, (which is a very good thing) it does make finishing the game a breeze, even in hard mode (which is kind of a bad thing). You can purchase items like Medikits and Eve Hypos to replenish your plasmid powers, bullets and more from strategically placed vending machines. You’ll also come across U-Invent machines where a variety of scavenged items can be transformed into useful ammo and gadgets. Hacking said vending machines through a puzzle-based mini-game lowers the prices so you can save those hard earned dollars stolen from the still-warm corpses of anyone unfortunate enough to have been clubbed to death by your trusty wrench.
Central to BioShock’s premise is the acquisition of special abilities courtesy of power-ups called plasmids. Dual wielding plasmids alongside your conventional weapons quickly becomes second nature and makes you feel incredibly powerful. There’s a wealth of different abilities to discover, which you can upgrade later in the game to devastating effect. The best ones we found were the electro shock, incinerate and telekinesis, which are pretty self-explanatory from their names. Head and shoulders above the others though is the insect swarm which gives you the ability to cast armies of killer bees from your hand. Nasty. There are also downloadable plasmids available on Xbox LIVE meaning that there’ll always be scope for replaying the game, even if it’s just to see what new havoc you can wreak.

Invented by Rapture’s twisted founder and reprehensible wizard behind the curtain Andrew Ryan, plasmids are gained by accumulating a substance called Adam. Adam can be harvested from the macabre Little Sisters who roam the environments guarded by colossal, menacing Big Daddies who protect the Little Sisters at all costs. That’s where BioShock’s fundamental choice comes into play. Do you kill and harvest the Little Sisters for more Adam, therefore becoming more powerful at a much quicker rate, or do you rescue them and choose to build your powers slowly, gaining less Adam but potentially reaping greater rewards later on? It’s a no-brainer of a choice if you ask us. It quickly becomes apparent which is the better option dispelling any illusion that your selection has any kind of effect on the story. There’re two endings - a good and a bad one. You can probably guess which choice leads to each and which is the more rewarding. The choice that you ultimately make however will tell you a lot about your moral values (maybe). However, there are enough absorbing tasks and unpredictable plot twists to keep you occupied that you’re never really fully aware of BioShock’s (admittedly tiny) flaws until you’ve finished the game and had time to reflect on the journey that you’ve just taken. And playing through BioShock is indeed a journey, an intense experience that has few peers.
No other game in recent memory possesses the same brand of slow-burn psychological horror permeating every room, every passageway and every hall. BioShock doesn’t scare in the traditional sense; it quietly crawls under your skin and confronts you with unsettling scenes such as a couple lying in a lifeless embrace on their bed or a conventional family surrounding their TV set as static illuminates their grotesque, decomposing bodies. A game like Resident Evil would have you jump out of your skin as they spring at you, but BioShock doesn’t do cheap scares. It aims for something higher - it messes with your head. There are even moments that are scarily surreal, seemingly lifted from The Shining. A pair of Splicers gracefully dancing the foxtrot while a gramophone plays a crackling old record being one such instance. Setting them alight with your flamethrower just makes things worse though, which is where BioShock’s combat options come to the fore. You can play through BioShock in any way you like due to it’s flexible and varied system which allows you to upgrade almost every aspect of your character. It’s surprisingly in-depth; offering almost RPG levels of self-improvement such as quieter footsteps for stealthy wrench assaults, better hacking skills, stronger plasmids, better weapons, extra resilience and so on. Theoretically, you could play through without firing a single bullet; so plentiful are your options. You can set traps, enrage your enemies so that they fight one another, hack security bots to fight alongside you or even hypnotise Big Daddies to protect you instead of the Little Sisters. You don’t always have to torch your foes or shoot them in the face. The possibilities are vast and another reason why BioShock stands up as such an accomplished work of genius.
BioShock is an incredibly ambitious title, which more than delivers on its initial promise, managing to entertain and enthral from start to finish. Consistently surprising, shocking and eminently, compulsively playable, BioShock stands head and shoulders above any 360 title you’ll play this year. And even though the majority may argue that Halo 3 was 2007’s definitive 360 title, we enjoyed BioShock more. Even though it has far less features than Halo 3 (the lack of multi-player being a minor blow), BioShock possesses such scope and abundant imagination that for our money, it’s the finest game of 2007 and a bona-fide masterpiece.
I choose…Rapture! - 10/10

Movie Review: The Golden Compass (December, 2007)

When it was announced that a movie adaptation of Philip Pullman's first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy, Northern Lights had been greenlit the collective sphincters of millions of fans clenched in tentative anticipation of the result. With the director of American Pie and About A Boy, Chris Weitz drafted in to replace Shopgirl director Anand Tucker, fears for how the source material would be treated were amplified. Why on earth is the director of a puerile, gross out comedy being entrusted with such a high profile project? We as fans shared the fear that the worst would inevitably happen. That these fantastic books would suffer the same fate as Narnia and be reduced to kiddie-friendly popcorn fare with none of the drama and gravitas of the Lord Of The Rings movies.

And guess what? It's not nearly as bad as we'd anticipated, but still plays out like a tick-box list of events from the book reeled off in a fashion that is completely devoid of any kind of drama, threat or suspense. When Lyra is gifted with the eponymous compass there's no feeling that the device is of any significant importance, possessing none of the fanfare that came with the one ring. Galling too is the relationship between the characters and their daemons and despite the obligatory exposition-spouting opening voiceover explaining how a daemon is a person's very soul, there's very little indication of how deep this relationship runs. When Lyra is undergoing the intercision process at the Bolvangar facility the tension in the books is so palpable that you're grinding your teeth and digging your nails into your own leg. In the movie the same scene is stripped of all suspense and is in keeping with the rest of the film in that it's over in a matter of seconds. Weitz is in such a rush to race through the book's key moments that there's no time to really get to know the characters, no time to savour the breathtaking scenery and accomplished performances from a strong ensemble cast. The Golden Compass marches on, determined to get you from A to B and out the door as quickly as possible. It's truly a crying shame. Were Golden Compass given an extra hour of running time to flesh out the book's major central narrative components - of which there are many, all intricate, all compelling - the result would have been a far superior movie to the one that ended up making it into local multiplexes. There are some fantastic moments, but they're just too few and far between, bogged down in a mire of clunky exposition spoon fed in such an unenthusiastic way that it's hard to care.

The Golden Compass is a huge disappoinment, not least due to the enormous potential this had to be a worthy successor to Peter Jackson's hallowed trilogy. Pullman's original concepts and ideas are so well-developed in the books that translating them to the screen with the original sense of wonder intact should have been an easy job. That the execution is so ham-fisted is beyond belief. There are high points. The witches and ice bears, - particularly Iorek Byrnison voiced grumpily by a gruff Ian McKellen - are beautifully realised as are the daemons. Even the alternate universe where Lyra's story unfolds is brought to life brilliantly. Golden Compass just isn't the sum of its parts. On paper it should be an unbridled success. In practice it only succeeds in being a perfectly serviceable and mildly entertaining diversion for its two hour running time. It won't stay by your side like a faithful daemon, it'll simply float out of your conciousness like dust. Ironic for a movie where a person's soul is represented in the form of an animal that it has no soul of its own.

***

Review: Guitar Hero III Legends Of Rock (Xbox 360 (version played), PlayStation 3, PC. Neversoft, Activision)

Let's clear something up before we get into this review. Standing in front of your TV gurning at the screen whilst concentrating on coloured dots ascending into view, clawing at a plastic guitar shouldn't be this good. And it almost certainly shouldn't be this compulsive. That it manages to be both addictive and fun is testament to the simplistic mechanic that's been at the core of Guitar Hero since its original inception. Couple this fiendishly simple device of strumming in time to coloured dots as they scroll up the screen with a setlist of seminal rock music and you've got party gaming gold. Looming on the distant horizon however is a more enticing prospect, Harmonix's new project with EA, post Guitar Hero II, the much vaunted Rock Band. Does this now mean Neversoft's efforts in developing a new Guitar Hero game are in vain, creating something that will inevitably pale into comparison when Harmonix and EA's monster eventually swaggers onto the scene? The answer is a resounding no. GH III more than stands up on it's own merits, deserving of it's own status as a rhythm-action game par excellence, though some will argue that Neversoft's game is now nothing more than a stop-gap before the main event. A supporting act if you will. This is partly true as it's difficult to ignore the huge shadow Rock Band casts over GH III. While playing GH III it's hard not to yearn for everyone in the room to get involved. With Rock Band providing vocals, drums, bass and lead guitar (at a hefty price no doubt) you can't help but feel GH III is lacking in some way.

Best thing about GH III is the track list. In our opinion it's the best line-up of Guitar Hero music yet, boasting tracks from The Who, Guns N' Roses, Queens Of The Stone Age, Black Sabbath and much more. There's something for everyone, whatever generation of rocker you happen to be, whether you're an ageing rocker or a lover of contemporary rock, you're guaranteed to find favourites you'll love and abominations you'll hate. You can take your thrashy metal bollocks for a start-we can't stand it. What are Slipknot doing in this game?! See, tracks you'll love and tracks you'll hate, just like we said. Irritatingly though some of the best tracks have been relegated to co-op mode only, which is howlingly stupid as you'll need to shell out for an additional guitar to be able to play them. So, if you want to play Beastie Boys' Sabotage or The Strokes' Reptilia and you only have one guitar, tough. You can't. It's a ridiculous oversight that robs the single player mode of several perfectly good tracks. Shame. And while we're on the subject of track choices, Metallica's One possesses none of the elan that playing Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird provided as a challenging final song, it's simply a trying test of patience that outstays it's welcome.

We still love Guitar Hero III though, it's ability to make you feel like a rock star and suck you into its inimitable caricatured world is still unique and although Rock Band may soon usurp it's predecessor there'll always be a place in our hearts for the original rockin' out game. And it's for this reason alone that GH III remains unbeatable amongst its (very few) rhythm action peers. Battling legends like Tom Morello and Slash provide the icing on GH III's excessive rock cake making for a satisfying meal of headbanging fun. There's nothing particularly new here that we haven't seen before in the last two games, but Legends Of Rock is still ace. Rock on.
Legendary: 8/10

Review: Ratchet and Clank: Tools Of Destruction (PlayStation 3. Insomniac, Sony.)

The humble platform genre has been through a lot since the halcyon days of Sonic, Mario and their long standing rivalry. Now the spiny blue one and the portly, moustachioed plumber have buried the hatchet and platform games have evolved into the fully explorable, 3D visual feasts we've come to recognise on current-gen hardware. Ratchet and Clank have always served up such hearty feasts with fantastically realised cartoon sci-fi worlds packed to the gills with razor-sharp humour and equally well-honed gameplay. Possessing all the qualities of a Pixar movie (we're certain this comment has been bandied about a lot), the latest instalment of Ratchet and Clank is an HD treat, retaining everything that made its predecessors so emminently playable, Tools Of Destruction is brimming with ideas and imagination. R&C also happens to be one of the prettiest games on PS3 with lovely, high resolution textures fleshing out the bright, bold, outlandish characters and backdrops, successfully forming a solid and appealing set of environments.

Central to R&C's platforming premise is the array of novel and quirky firepower that you can wield and upgrade. Previous incarnations have always boasted a plethora of hefty weapons you can progressively upgrade and beef up as you use them during the course of the game. Later iterations introduced buying upgrades for bolts that still come spilling out of vanquished enemies and broken crates for you to hoover up. Tools Of Destruction offers the most complete and in-depth mechanic for uprading weapons yet. This introduces a degree of strategy as you are made to decide which weapons to lavish bolts and raritanium on upgrading with a view to what obstacles may await you further down the line. More than ever, this puts R&C's arsenal centre stage as you must carefully pick and choose your favourites or risk running around with an inventory of underdeveloped hardware leaving yourself potentially vulnerable when facing one of the many huge boss characters should you upgrade the wrong weapon for the job. Our firm favourites became indispensable in a clinch, consisting of the formidable Negotiator rocket launcher, Plasma stalkers, Mr. Zurkon and of course the Groovitron, which makes all on-screen enemies boogie uncontrollably. Thankfully, choosing to upgrade a useless weapon isn't completely detrimental to your progress. You can always die and continue to amass bolts and raritanium for upgrades. It's a system that allows you to be improving your weapons constantly so that the rewards and sense of progress is reinforced throughout the game's generous running time.

Ratchet and Clank: TOD is an absolute joy to play as ever, but will be instantly familiar to veterans of the previous titles on PS2. So, business as usual then for our Lombax hero and his robotic sidekick? Well, yes, but there's so much more to see and do in R&C's next-gen debut. On-rails outer space dogfighting makes a welcome comeback as do the intense arena battles, but familiarity here, rather tha breeding contempt, actually forms a part of R&C's lasting appeal. These are characters you'll want to spend time with even if you've never played any of the previous titles. The action and narrative is so well scripted and actually, genuinely funny that every moment is a pleasure.

In terms of longevity, Tools Of Destruction is a bit of a step back, shorn of the multiplayer modes that made Ratchet and Clank 3 such a comprehensive package on PS2. There's still a lot of single player action to work through bolstered by replay value in the form of a challenge mode that lets you replay the game with your array of deadly weaponry, stacking the odds firmly in your favour.

Tools Of Destruction is as good as it gets on PS3 at the moment. Visually stunning, effortlessly playable, R&C's latest adventure stands out as one of the most essential titles currently available for Sony's under-represented platform. When games for the PS3 are so scarce, it's important to celebrate the really good ones. This is one right here and therefore deserves your time. Simple.

A raritanium treat: 9/10

Review: Guitar Hero II (PS2, Xbox 360. Harmonix, Activision)

Singstar and EyeToy on PlayStation 2 brought about a living room revolution a few years ago by getting the whole family involved in gaming. It was a masterstroke that saw Sony and the PS2 dominate social gaming. That is until the Wii was born and now everyone's at it, prancing and warbling around their living rooms like the latest X Factor rejects. No social gamer worth their salt will have bypassed Guitar Hero, the genius strumming game from the fellas behind rhythm action titles Frequency and Amplitude. Guitar Hero is essentially nothing new. Konami did the Bemani guitar peripheral thing years ago with Guitar Freak, but Guitar Hero is undoubtedly better. Lifting the scrolling notes mechanic wholesale from Harmonix's aforementioned efforts, Guitar Hero maps the notes to coloured buttons on the guitar fretboard and then adds a strumming switch and whammy bar to the guitar's body. The idea is deceptively simple; hold the corresponding colour to the one displayed on-screen as it scrolls up from the bottom of the screen and strum in time to hit it. You can tweak the whammy bar to add pitch and distortion effects to long notes thus garnishing solos with a touch of personal flair. Easy right? Well, yes but not to begin with. When you first pick up Guitar Hero, unless you're an actual guitar player your fingers will trip and slide all over the place like Bambi trying to walk on ice. Give it a few minutes though and you'll be surprised at how quickly you can pick it up. On easy mode Guitar Hero II is accesible to anyone, using three of the five fret buttons, it's fun and mildly challenging. Medium difficulty adds an extra button and ups the ante, whereas hard and expert are ridiculously complicated utilising all five buttons and requiring real-world guitar skills or insane dedication to master. However, nothing beats nailing a tough solo that you've been practicing for ages, giving you the same satisfied feeling you might get from beating a tough end boss in any other game you'd care to think of. And therein lies the brilliance of Guitar Hero II, it's the only game that actually makes you feel like a rock star. There is of course the argument that you could use the time dedicated to playing Guitar Hero to actually learn how to play the real guitar and yes, sometimes that feeling does creep in from time to time. Yet, it quickly subsides as you realise you're having way too much fun shredding your plastic axe to the strains of Sweet Child O' Mine or Freebird. There's really nothing else like it.

GH II's track list is expemplary, offering a varety of rock classics old and new to get to grips with. Obviously, you'll have your favourites (Jessica, Monkey Wrench and John the Fisherman since you ask) which you'll play over and over again 'til your fingers bleed.

GH II is compulsive, challenging and above all fun. Invest in a pair of axes and you can play rhythm, bass or lead in co-op or face-off head to head in a battle of riffs. Harmonix have covered all bases with this sequel, improving vastly upon its predecessor. It stands out as an essential title for 360 or PS2 and has the added bonus of making you everyone's best friend. So, get the beers and nibbles in, fire up GH II and rock on! Go on, melt some faces!

Te-riff-ic: 9/10

Playing Guitar Hero II seriously whets your appetite for the forthcoming sequel with development duties handed over to Tony Hawk stalwarts Neversoft. With its added boss battles against legends like Guns N' Roses' Slash, GH III is an exciting prospect. Not as exciting as Rock Band though, Harmonix's new pet project with EA that allows you to sing, play guitar, bass and drums. Outstanding. Will there be room for both games under your telly in the coming months? We'd say yes. If you're loaded buy both. Us? We're going to have to choose...unless we sell a kidney.

Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3 (version played), Xbox 360, PC. Infinity Ward, Ubisoft)

Ever since Medal Of Honor exploded on to the gaming scene with its Saving Private Ryan (1998) style D-Day landing beach assault, World War II as subject matter has been exploited in countless shooters, Real Time Strategy games and more. Hell, even the grandaddy of the first person shooter Wolfenstein 3D was set during WWII, although we don't think Hitler in a mech-suit was entirely accurate from a historical standpoint. To say the subject is getting a bit stale as source material for a game is like saying Hitler was a bit of a mad git.

Thank God then for Call Of Duty 4, the first title in the series to ditch Nazi bashing in favour of something fresh and relevant, bringing the conflict into the modern day. The clue's in the title's suffix, it's all about Modern Warfare meaning a wealth of cutting edge contemporary weaponry at your fingertips.

You begin the game in the shiny boots of new SAS recruit Private 'Soap' Mc.Tavish under the tutelage of the outrageously moustachioed, gruff and instantly likeable Captain Price. The first task you undertake is dispatching wooden targets in a sparse training hangar. How fast you complete the tutorial determines your recommended skill level for the rest of the game and helps inform your decision when selecting your preffered difficulty level. Clever. After this brief training session you're plunged balls-deep into the action in the prologue level set aboard an enormous cargo ship in raging high seas. Your first mission? Find and secure a nuclear weapon hidden somewhere below deck. Easy. COD's opening stage is the perfect introduction to what the rest of the game has to offer. That is heavy, realistic gunplay supported by a squad with sharp AI who actually help rather than hinder your progress. Your team are so smart that you'll develop an affinity with them and you may even grow to care about them like we did. In having well-drawn and believable characters on your side, the moments where they're under threat are made even more poignant and tense. In fact there's high drama and awe-inspiring set-pieces throughout, which we won't spoil for you here, just know that each one is nerve-shredding and arse-puckeringly taut. Having to escape from a cargo ship that's being torn asunder and quickly filling with water is the first set-piece that has you on the edge of your seat. And that's in the first ten minutes. The action in COD 4 comes thick and fast, tightly scripted like the best Hollywood action movie imaginable, except you're the one in control, you're the star.

Call Of Duty 4 is probably the best shooter we've played this year and it succeeds in being such for a number of reasons. Key to the game's strength is it's guns that even without the rumble from the PS3's sixaxis still manage to somehow feel right. Shooting enemies is so incredibly authentic as they react to your bullets exactly as you'd expect them to, carking it in a well animated and completely believable fashion. Not since Black on PS2 have guns felt so meaty and lethal. When you pull the trigger things break. Masonry, bricks, walls-it's pretty much all destructible in some way and as such cover is no guarantee of safety, for you or your enemies. One such mission set in a TV studio is a perfect example of the kind of havoc you can wreak and the mess you can leave behind. In short it's just as you'd imagine war might be in real life, nowhere on the battlefield is safe and death will visit you quickly if you're not careful. Despite being brutally realistic, Call Of Duty 4 is real in the best possible way, enhancing the experience to levels of total delirious brilliance. You'll be punching the air and whooping 'boo-yah' like a jingoistic nutter (just make sure no-one's around when you are). You simply won't want the game to end which sadly it does after around 6-8 hours of wall-to-wall action and a dramatic pay-off that is quite possibly one of the best endings to a ever grace a videogame. All this and you get to play as good old British SAS soldiers for the majority of the game: a welcome departure from playing as America's Marine Corps or whatever. And the British accents actually sound pretty good for a change meaning you'll more than likely identify with the SAS team rather than the US Forces who consist of the predictable stereotypes we've come to know and love.

Call Of Duty 4 is unreservedly brilliant, boasting a storyline with characters you'll grow to love and weapons you'll love even more. Unfortunately, the experience suffers somewhat online as the game mostly involves killing and dying in quick succession without much scope to build any kind of momentum or longevity, but this is a minor gripe, which has probably more to do with our lack of online prowess rather than any inherent flaw. Also, it's a crying shame that the single-player campaign tops out at around eight hours if you're slow and methodical, less than this if you're a gung-ho Speedy Gonzalez. Thankfully, the on and offline multiplayer injects some longevity into the game and to be honest, COD 4's campaign is more than worthy of a second play-through.

So, the best Call Of Duty yet? That's affirmative soldier. Buy it now. That's an order.

Mission accomplished: 9/10

Review: Warhawk (PS3. Incognito, Sony)

It's not often that you get a pleasant, unexpected surprise in the form of a game. You can usually gauge fairly early on whether a game is going to turn out to be a complete turkey or not. Warhawk initially appeared to be such a game. A flight-sim set in the near future? Pass. No thanks. It's been done a million times before and flight-sims tend to be stuffy, lifeless fare based entirely upon the player's ability to keep a crosshair steady for a couple of seconds to achieve a lock-on. Yawn. As console gamers our attention spans are inherently short and as such flight games normally don't fulfil our fast paced gaming needs unless you're talking about Namco's Ace Combat series which generally errs on the side of being pretty good. So, what makes Warhawk so special? Well quite a lot as it turns out.

Pitting the Eucadian armies against the malevolent Chernovian, the game is a bit like Star Wars in its set-up. The Eucadians even look like the Rebel Alliance with their battle scarred craft and khaki fatigues. And as you'll have guessed by now, the Chernovians look typically Darth Vader-esque in black garb and samurai helmets. It's the perfect excuse for two factions to blow each other to kingdom come and requires no further plot, exposition or any other pointless details. Hell, there's not even the back-story blather that you'd expect to find in the manual, it's just good versus evil and that's it. What else do you need to know?

Warhawk isn't just any old flight-sim as our first snap judgment had us assume. It's actually an insanely tooled up playground of weapons, vehicles and gun emplacements all for your delectation. Will it be the heavily armoured tank or the nippy jeep today, sir? Everything is tailored towards creating multiplayer destruction and mayhem on a huge scale. Whether you're manning a gun turret, tank or you're running along on foot, everything feels perfectly balanced and weapon pick-ups are littered all over the place so you're never without a formidable arsenal at your disposal. Sometimes on foot you can get stranded in the middle of nowhere, say if you happen to flip your jeep en-route to a fray, meaning you have to hoof your way to the nearest vehicle or area of activity, which can sometimes grate. This happens rarely, so doesn't really matter. Still, a sprint button or handy pushbike that you can grab from your backpack would have been a helpful addition.

All of the usual game modes are present and correct, as you'd expect. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag being the obvious suspects. Best of all though is Zones in which you attempt to capture as much enemy territory as possible. There are also straightforward, no nonsense dogfights where you begin at the controls of a warhawk and stay there for the duration, shooting down as many enemies as possible within the time limit. This is Warhawk at its purest.

The most fun to be had playing the game is in piloting the titular warhawks. Effortlessly manoeuvrable, quick, nimble and deadly the warhawks are the real stars of the show. You can hover mere feet from the ground raining minigun flavoured death down upon unfortunate soldiers, jeeps and tanks although you leave yourself vulnerable to being shot down. You can spin through the sky gracefully dodging missiles, navigating your way through narrow gaps and canyons (although you'll need to turn pro flight controls on to get the most out of your hawk) shooting down foes with aplomb. Get the hang of Warhawk and you're in for a treat. Hours will pass in what seem like minutes as you play just. one. more. game! It's fiendishly addictive and will have you hooked on its great, big candy shop of weapons and destruction.

Warhawk is a game so flawlessly executed that it's a compulsory purchase for anyone with a PS3 hooked up to the PlayStation Network and a penchant for blowing things up. Be warned, Warhawk is online multiplayer only and will consume hours of your life without you realising it. Unashamedly undemanding and unreservedly brilliant, Warhawk is completely and utterly indispensable.

Fuel: 9/10

Movie Review: 30 Days Of Night (November, 2007)

Based on the cult graphic novel of the same name, 30 Days Of Night sees a small town in Alaska terrorised by a band of marauding vampires out on a feeding frenzy during the titular time frame. It's a fantastic set-up for a horror movie, ramping up the tension as the days roll by.

<-- Melissa was disgusted by Josh's big farts

Barrow, Alaska is a friendly little place inhabited by hard working locals and tourists: the perfect location to be pillaged and torn apart by bloodthirsty
monsters then. Especially since the town experiences a month of perpetual darkness, spurring most people to leave, so tear the town apart they do in what proves to be an explosive, edge-of-the-seat movie.
Beginning with a relatively slow-paced exposition, the film’s opening establishes the minutiae of everyday life for Barrow’s residents as a whole chunk of them flee before the arduous month of pitch black ensues. And it’s not long before the action gets going because when the fanged menaces arrive, all hell breaks loose. Quick and brutal, the action is bloody, yet largely off-camera, probably to keep its audience-friendly 15 certificate. Don’t let that certificate fool you though because 30 Days is still pretty graphic in parts. Efficient and butal 30 Days vamps quickly wreak havoc, nicely captured using a sweeping overhead crane shot, the chaos they bring is unexpected. David Slade's assured direction means 30 Days is beautifully shot, the Hard Candy director executing Hollywood horror duties impeccably. The landscape is relentlessly bleak and oppressive amplifying the atmosphere as well as the innate feeling of helplessness and pessimism.
Recalling the claustrophobia and desperation of John Carpenter’s The Thing, 30 Days has moments of genuine tension that owe a debt to the 1982 classic. On the whole the performances are good, Danny Huston oozing a snarling, shark-like menace as lead bad guy Marlow although his band of followers are annoyingly resilient, popping up again when you think they’ve been offed. We thought we saw one particular bald vamp die about three times. Perhaps this was wishful thinking as his agonising, high-pitched screeching slowly drove us potty.
Strong too is Josh Hartnett’s performance as the squinty sheriff, delivering his squintiest and best performance to date. His journey from clean-cut lawman to beardy, worn-down, dead-eyed vampire slayer is seamless and convincing.
At its core, 30 Days Of Night is a fantastic popcorn movie, entertaining and relentlessly intense for the most part, boasting some explosive set pieces and interesting – if lightweight – human drama. Just don’t go in expecting traditional vampires in the Bela Lugosi mould, you’ll just feel incredibly disappointed. Vampire purists are better off thinking of 30 Days as a monster movie rather than a vampire one.
An accomplished horror-cum-action fest that justifies its exceptional US box-office performance by delivering terse atmospherics and good, solid performances. And it doesn’t skimp on the claret either. Well worth a watch.
****

Review: Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS3 (version played), Xbox 360, PC, PS2, PSP, DS, Wii. KCET, Konami.)

So, the quintessential soccer game finally makes its proper next-gen debut, complete with graphical overhaul, gimmicky AI-Teamvision feature and a brand new commentary team. Do any of these changes make for a better game of football? Read on.

From playing a short demo of FIFA 08 a little while ago, we speculated that EA might be on the right track towards playing catch-up with Pro Evo in offering unparalleled pick-up-and-play football excellence. And while this is undoubtedly true-there's no denying that EA have outdone themselves with this years instalment-Pro Evo still manages to play a superior game. But only just: this year, more than ever, the gap between the two titles is closing. FIFA continues to deliver the most comprehensive set of licenses whilst PES still lags behind in terms of providing the same level of authenticity. However, PES has taken some positive steps in the right direction with the majority of names and kits accurately represented in the game. Yet the complete set of Premiership teams remains conspicuously absent with only Newcastle and Tottenham blessed with proper apparel. Best of all though, is the new commentary from Jon Champion and Match Of The Day stalwart Mark Lawrenson. Still awful when compared to the seamless match analysis featured in any EA or 2K sports title you'd care to mention, it's a vast improvement over the woeful, notoriously bad, nonsensical ravings from past PES outings.

There's also a far slicker, TV-style presentation implemented in PES 2008, which places the game ever nearer the real thing. Sadly, the replays are absolutely, irrevocably terrible. Serious issues with the game's frame-rate mar the usual celebration of great goals by transforming them into farcical, comic snippets that wouldn't look out of place in a Benny Hill show. Apparently, this problem only affects the PS3 version and Konami are supposedly beavering away on a patch to fix the appalling stuttering that plagues the replays.

Thankfully, the in-game frame-rate remains stable for the most part, only invading the proceedings when things get hectic. The only thing that you need to know about PES 2008 is that it still plays relatively smooth and intuitive with goal scoring remaining blissfully rewarding as ever. Still, there's the slight nagging feeling that for all its newly implemented features, such as the new adaptive Teamvision AI, shirt tugging and diving, this is still the same old PES only with added High Definition graphical sheen. While in the case of PES one could apply the old adage, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it', here you can't help but feel that the game could have benefited from some extra development time as the finished product feels exactly the opposite. PES 2008 possesses an indefinable 'scrappy' unfinished quality exacerbated by the stuttering animation and the atmosphere-shattering bitmap crowds that cheer in mechanical unison. Visually, PES remains stellar despite noticeable issues. Player likenesses remain eerily lifelike, yet old graphical issues from last-gen PES titles such as occasional clipping and dodgy collision detection persist, but luckily don't conspire to break the game.

Despite a number of annoying niggles that could be fixed with a simple, downloadable update, PES remains the king of football games. Accessible, fun and great with friends, it's also a somewhat disappointing update as we've come to expect better from the series. Still sublime then, just not as sublime as past triumphs. A bit like Maradona then, except without the overeating and the drug abuse.

Score: 8/10

As a post-script, special mention should be made of the game's abhorrent soundtrack comprised of amateurish songs and instrumentals that should be locked in a vault and jettisoned into the deepest recesses of space. Turn off the BGM before you even think about playing the game: it's that bad.

The Shed is in attendance at the London Game Career Fair.

October 23rd-24th saw the Whitechapel area of London pay host to the annual London Game Career Fair, so we went along to have a look. Trudging off the busy tube to briskly walk along the streets, we were on our way, our senses assaulted by a heady mix of smells and the constant cacophonous racket of traffic. Once inside, The Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane where the event was held proved to be an adequate size for the twenty odd boothes and jostling crowds competing to have their questions answered, ideas picked over and CVs read by the big industry bods.

Our unique angle? Writing of course, and we spoke to every one of the industry's representatives to see if we could find our way into writing for games. As it turns out, it's not that easy and the majority of reps we asked were either stumped or offered up QA and design as possible avenues.

EA, Ubisoft, Sega, Team17, Lucasarts, Kuju, Juice, Realtime Worlds, Rare, NCSoft, Freestyle, Other Ocean, Escape and Blitz were among the many developers with booths showing off their latest IPs. Being the intrepid reporter types that we are, we asked them whether there were any new hot IPs on the horizon. Lamentably, we were met with a firm "sorry, I can't say" from all comers. We even attempted to get some info on the upcoming collaboration between Free Radical and Luasarts' but were met with the same response. Hey, we tried.

Nevertheless, there were still a host of games on show, albeit current titles such as Viva Pinata, Sega Rally and Tiger Woods PGA 08, which was available to play on the four Nintendo Wii pods provided by EA.

In addition to the prescence of developers and publishers, attendees could take part in sessions focused on specific aspects of working in the games industry. They provided added insight beyond the advice and help being given by the booth residents.

However, the occassion could have used a boost from a gaming celebrity. On the walls near the bar area, were pictures of famous studio figure-heads, which looked like our wish list of who we would have liked to meet at this event. Hideo Kojima, Kaz Hirai, Gabe Newell. We could only imagine how amazing the fair could have been with the presence of just one of these guys.

Press presence was minimal, covered by the nice chaps at Imagine Publishing who were selling discounted issues of their fine award winning mag, gamesTM. Happily, they were also happy to dispense helpful advice and The Shed walked away with an invaluable email address.

So all in all, the London Games Career was a productive, if somewhat slow-paced day. Frankly, we would have liked to have seen far more games beyond the paltry offering of a few Wii's, but I guess you can't have it all. Oh, and the coffee was a tad too bitter. Next year then, more games, smoother coffee please.

Capcom announce Street Fighter IV!! Fanboys everywhere rejoice!

We never thought it would happen but Capcom have recently announced a new Street Fighter game accompanied by a flashy debut trailer. The trailer (cast thine eyes south) shows old favourites and long time sparring partners Ryu and Ken having a right old punch-up, complete with instantly recognisable - nay, iconic - moves making a comeback. Classic moves like the Hadoken fireball and Sho-ryu-ken Dragon Punch are depicted in all their glory, erupting in lovely watercolour brush strokes, instantly rekindling fond memories of misspent youth rolling pocket money into SF coin-ops, albeit in an arty way that looks rather nice. All of this eye-catching tussle between the two stalwarts takes place on a painterly battlefield, not unlike the canvas employed by Capcom stablemate Okami. Is the trailer possibly indicative of a bold new visual style for the old school beat 'em up or just a dramatic way of re-introducing everyones favourite fighting game in a typically overblown way? We're not sure whether the hardcore SF fanboys will accept an artsy-fartsy new direction for Ryu and co. so our guess will be with the latter.
Watch this space to see more from the grandaddy of brawlers and find out if this old pugilist can recapture the glory from its bygone days. Meanwhile, enjoy the trailer...


Trailer courtesy of GameTrailers.com

We reckon Street Fighter IV will be Hurricane Kicking onto a console near you around this time next year...don't quote us on that though.

We're tired of waiting for the PS3 to get the games it deserves.

For hardcore gamers, there's really only a choice of two consoles (the hassle and expense of a PC has never sat well with us when it comes to gaming and the Wii is just too damn family-focused). What happens when you can only splash your cash on one of them and you feel like ultimately you made the wrong decision? Being among work colleagues discussing the many incredible games they've been enjoying on their Xbox 360s, I've been feeling somewhat behind the times as well as completely alienated. As a PS3 owner I'm currently missing out on big-hitters like Halo 3, Bioshock, and PGR 4, not to mention established classics like Dead Rising (which I have played for an extended period), Gears Of War (ditto) and Crackdown. Since the PS3's launch, I've enjoyed a handful of fantastic games, most of which were multi-format releases and I don't necessarily regret my choice. I'm simply unable to shake the nagging feeling that as a PS3 gamer, I'm getting left behind. Discovering that I have to wait an extra month for the Half Life 2 Orange Box to be released was the last straw, I have to vent my frustration and convey my bitterness. I'm sick and tired of waiting for the PS3 to deliver the lofty promises that we're made from the moment Ken Kutaragi held aloft that big, slab of next-gen console. With PS3's killer apps turning out to be not all that killer (see Heavenly Sword, Resistance et al) and the PlayStation Store being the online equivalent of Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard, we're left looking impatiently at our watches for the big games to come along. And to be fair, there are some doozies just around the corner-well, about four to six months away. Home, LittleBigPlanet, Killzone 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4 are all going to be huge and you'll only be able to experience them on PlayStation 3. But what to do until the console finally gets the big, quality titles that have been so sorely lacking? Buy a 360? It looks as if this is the only (stupid, expensive) solution.

When the Xbox 360 came out almost two years ago, gamers were faced with what seemed like a tough decision. With the looming, power of the PlayStation 3 on the horizon promising a complete next-gen experience the likes of which the Bill Gates-box could never hope to muster, it came down to a simple, but difficult choice. Buy a 360, blowing your wad on the first of the next-gen consoles and hope the PS3 fails to live up to expectation or stick with your current console and wait it out for the promise of what will quite possibly be the uber-console that will blow the 360 out of the water? An easy A or B answer to a complex situation, we decided to opt for B, wait it out to hopefully feel smug that we exercised restraint, saving the pennies for the superior piece of machinery. After all, Sony's rhetoric promised incredible things for the future of gaming and on paper, it's the better console. A raft of huge exclusives, free online play, motion control, 1080p HD resolution through its HDMI output, backwards compatibility and exceptional graphics and sound that would outdo the 360 by some distance. That it looked like the Bentley of games consoles enrobed in luxurious, semi-transparent black plastic, something akin to the imposing monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey entirely convinced us that we'd get our just reward for our monk-like patience.

March 23rd and our PS3 arrives. For several months the warm glow of satisfaction is unmistakable, we feel safe in the knowledge that it was all worth the long delays and agonizing news stories about blue diodes and whatnot to experience the ultimate in gaming nirvana. Flash forward to the present day and well, we're feeling pretty stupid.

You see, the PS3 is an incredible machine delivering everything Sony said it would, except for one salient component: the games and a everyone knows that a console ultimately lives or dies by its games. Of course Microsoft have had a head start of over a year, but then the PS3 has now been on the shelves for seven months and the number of quality titles and exclusives can be counted on one hand. Okay, perhaps that's a slight exaggeration, but the truth remains that the 360 is home to the majority of triple-A titles and exclusives. Blockbusting games like Bioshock, Halo 3, Gears Of War, Crackdown, Forza 2, Project Gotham 4, Lost Planet, Dead Rising, Condemned, Mass Effect, Fable 2, Splinter Cell 5: the list goes on and will no doubt expand even further in the coming months as Gates reaches even further into his bottomless pockets. However, glancing further into the future, there are a number of PS3 exclusives to get genuinely excited about. Unreal Tournament 3 and Haze will now lead on the PS3, debuting on 360 at a later date whereas the likes of Metal Gear 4, Final Fantasy XIII, Killzone 2, LittleBigPlanet, Gran Turismo 5 and spy-based MMO The Agency will remain resolutely PS3 exclusive (for now). This of course is all well and good if you're prepared to wait and wait we shall. We've heard that good things do eventually come...

However, in the meantime while Landon enjoys the benefits of owning both a 360 and PS3, it looks as if I'm going to have to stick an Xbox on the credit card. Aaah. Plastic. Now do I go for the Premium or the Elite?

An Xbox 360 can currently be picked up for between £170-£300 depending on the model. Look out for some generous bundle deals. Free Halo 3 or PGR 4 for instance.

The PS3 can now be snapped up for either £299 for the 40GB model or £349 for the 60GB original. Again, shop around and you can grab yourself a tasty bundle package.

Sony offer an alternative to a price cut for PS3...

Following Sony's generous UK PlayStation 3 package consisting of two launch titles, a brace of control pads and a 60GB console, the majority of punters looking to get their hands on a piece of Sony's next-gen pie felt a little fobbed off. Even more so in light of the price cuts seen in America and Japan, it seemed that once again the PAL territories were getting a bum deal.

Well, guess what? Sony have come up with a new, cost-effective way of making the PS3 available to potential buyers who found the £425 price tag too much to swallow. As of next week Sony will be releasing a diluted version of the PS3, stripped of a lot of the extras that made the launch model a truly premium console. The first and most significant casualty is the hard drive, which has been cut back to 40GB, a feature that will be expanded to a muscular 80GB in the States. Yet another poke in the eye for the UK market. In addition to losing 20GB of storage space, the new PS3 will be shorn of two of its USB ports and backwards compatibility with PS2 titles, although PSone discs will still work fine. Every cloud, eh? But wait, there's more. You won't be able to pop your music and holiday snaps onto the hard drive directly through the memory card slots simply because there aren't any on the updated, downgraded machine.
The upside to all of this is that those yet to own a PS3 can now pick one up for the more wallet friendly price tag of £299.99. Unfortunately, the really bad news is that anyone wanting the full spec original console will have to get it fast. Luckily, there's great news for anyone looking to get their mitts on the untouched launch model. You can now pick one up for the bargain price of just £349.99! Genuine value for money once the games start to arrive (patience, give it a couple of months). Rumour has it that soon the 40GB model will be the only available option so you'll have to get in quick or be condemned to own an inferior slab of plastic and chips. Ouch!

Also, while we're on the subject, The Shed would like to issue a pair of apologies. One for being away for so long (moving to London took some time out of our schedule) and two for being weighted heavily on the PS3 side. We assure you that we are totally unbiased in our console love. We love them all equally. Long story short, Landon is the 360 reviewer and he's a lazy git and neither of us own, or know anyone that owns, a Wii. So there.

The 40GB PlayStation 3 and cut price 60GB model is available from today. That's Wednesday 10th October, kids.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 VS. FIFA 08. Whose year is it?

It's a fact known only amongst friends that we at The Shed are transformed into rabid, shouting nut-jobs when we are exposed to Konami's definitive footy opus Pro Evolution Soccer. PES (we pronounce it 'pez') is the cornerstone of any multiplayer games session, instantly seperating the men from the boys when it comes to settling the order of our social gaming hierarchy. Only TimeSplitters comes close to emulating the argument resolving power of PES, its universal playability means that all comers invariably want to get involved, ultimately being ensnared by the intuitive nature of the game.
Frankly, PES has had no equal for years, its reign as the purist's football game of choice has gone unchallenged since Konami refined it's sublime footy formula with ISS Pro Evolution (1999) on the PSone. Integral to the innate playability of Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo's (KCET) masterpiece is all down to the silky smooth responsive game it plays. It's like real football, shrunk down and shoved onto a disc. It's nothing short of miraculous.
EA's chart topping FIFA franchise has never been able to keep up with PES in gameplay terms, despite retaining a loyal fanbase, enticed by the unparalleled level of authenticity offered by EA's financial clout lending the title a complete set of licences. PES conversely has never been able to keep up with FIFA when it comes to the sheer quantity of officially licenced teams, strips, players, stadia, leagues, advertisements, commentary...you get the idea. It's always been a case of having to choose whether you value authenticity over gameplay or vice-versa.
For us, gameplay wins out every time; there's simply no contest. But this year the gap between the two titles is narrower than ever as EA have refined FIFA to such a degree that the 2007 instalment played a virtually identical game of footy to PES. FIFA 08 is now available as a downloadable demo on the PlayStation Store and after an in-depth playtest for the first time since the first FIFA made it's debut on the Sega Mega Drive in 1993, we're very nearly sold on the new FIFA.
EA appear to have finally nailed the magic formula for reproducing the beautiful game on a games console and they've done it by, um, copying PES in every conceivable way. Yup, if imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery then PES must be blushing a deep shade of red. From a purely cynical standpoint you could accuse the latest FIFA of commiting an act of barefaced plagiarism, swiping Konami's near-flawless gameplay mechanic and dressing it in FIFA licenced clothes, but when you think about it, it's actually a very shrewd move on EA's part. PES has always maintained a high reputation amongst the gaming fraternity for playing a crisp, perfect game of football, whereas FIFA has always got by with its raft of liveries and slick presentation. PES has always compensated for its lack of proper kits and players by offering enough in-depth and detailed customisation options allowing you to create any GM Conference team you like should that be your desire. To our mind FIFA has never offered such editing bliss. Now that FIFA looks as if it may represent the complete package, PES' place as king of footy games could be under serious threat.

One of the most welcome additions to PES 2008 is the option to dive, a feature lifted from Sony's This Is Football. Remember? No? Us neither. ^

What's new PES-sy cat?
The real crux of the single player PES experience has always been the deep, all-encompassing Master League mode, but that's not what Konami are promoting this year. The big innovation that Seabass (that's Mr. PES to you. Shingo 'Seabass' Takatsuka) and his team are pushing is the new Teamvision AI system, which means that opposing teams will learn and adapt to your style of play resulting in a different, potentially more challenging match every time you play. Interesting stuff but not as promising as EA's 'Be A Pro' mode, which could possibly turn out to be a revolutionary addition to the game. Like dusty old Namco footy experiment gone wrong Libero Grande, you take control of a fixed player with the game camera positioned behind you at all times. Exciting stuff that could be great or utter toss depending on how successful its implementation is. If Namco's 1997 effort is any indication then expect a clunky, superfluous experience. If however FIFA 08's superb loading screen is to be believed then 'Be A Pro' could be an involving and visceral way to play the game. Placing you in the sweaty Nikes of buck-toothed Brazilian virtuoso and FIFA figure-head Ronaldinho, the game's loading screen plonks you in front of a goalkeeper (and goal, obviously) allowing you to get to grips with the game, try out the controls and knock in few screamers if the impulse grabs you. The great thing is you can do this to your heart's content: a nice little pre-match warm-up and a perfect example of the new FIFA's forward thinking. We're impressed.

Still, the burning question remains. Is it enough to knock the mighty PES from its high pedestal? Our verdict? Quite possibly, but ultimately inconclusive. Just don't be surprised if you find yourself trading PES for FIFA this year. Don't get us wrong, we absolutely love PES, but stranger things have happened and well, it's a funny old game...

Download the FIFA 08 demo from the PlayStation Store now and see if you agree with us.

Review: Virtua Fighter 5 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360. AM2, Sega)

Nowadays, gamers are pretty spoilt for choice when it comes to beat 'em ups. Want immediate arcade action? Buy Tekken or Soul Calibur. Looking for fast-paced explosive action with a strategic bent and pendulous breasts? Buy Dead Or Alive. But if you're after a beat 'em up with infinite depth and unparalleled finesse, there really is no other choice; Virtua Fighter 5 is where it's at.

First of all, a confession. We here at The Shed are completely green when it comes to the Virtua Fighter series. Our experience essentially boils down to a brief flirtation with the arcade versions resulting in many a lost quid and a quick dabble with the fourth instalment on the PS2. So why, you might ask have we even bothered to buy VF 5? We're graphics whores, easily lead by hype and as PS3 owners we're stuck with a console utterly bereft of high kicking, punchy beat 'em up action. Virtua Fighter 5 seemed like a logical purchase, after all, we've been playing Tekken since the beginning, we know the Soul Calibur series inside out and we could hold our own in a Dead Or Alive session any day of the week.

If like us you're VF virgins, you might find the game initially inaccessible, especially if you're used to a diet of Tekken, Soul Calibur and Street Fighter. You may find yourself especially frustrated by the pace of the action, more akin to a game of chess than an all action fighting game. Make no mistake, wade in fists flying like you would in Tekken and you'll get put down quicker than a scabby dog.

If you want to succeed in Virtua Fighter's world you'd best make a visit to the dojo first. It's there that you'll find useful tutorials to surviving a baptism of fire against the residents of the arcades that you'll battle through in the fantastic quest mode - the real crux of your VF 5 experience. Each arcade venue is made up of fighters whose data has been gleaned from actual player AI, each possessing varying skill levels. It's possible to trounce beginner and intermediate players by committing a few cheesy combos to memory and then relentlessly reeling them off. This dishonourable tactic will not serve you well against the more advanced players however, forcing you to actually develop your tactics and move set beyond just a basic handful of combos. It's tough, but it's worth it.

More than any other console scrapper, character selection is paramount as your chosen pugilist will be assigned to your profile potentially becoming a permanent extension of your Virtua Fighter self. The range of customisation options means that you can edit your character to make him or her your own, which actually adds nothing to the game unless you're playing the online enabled 360 version making your own character more recognisable (which begs the question, why is this a feature omitted from the PS3 version?).

Invest time in learning the many techniques, combos, moves and nuances of your character and Virtua Fighter 5 will start paying you back with dividends. Nothing is sweeter than mastering a fighter and subsequently vanquishing all comers. Due to the game's tough learning curve, grabbing a victory is always a great moment due to all that hard work you will have put in at the dojo and slowly working your way through the arcades. If you're good enough to win all of the numerous tournaments and reach a higher level, you may never go back to Tekken as it seems relatively lightweight by comparison.

Still in our own personal opinion, there's room for both the arcade thrills and immediacy of Namco's garish button mashers to co-exist alongside the deep, all-consuming face pulping of VF and to a lesser extent DOA. If it's longevity and depth that you're looking for, Virtua Fighter 5 really has no equal. Graphically sumptuous, flawlessly executed, VF 5 is a masterclass in sublime console beat 'em up action, which is more than worth its asking price. VF 5 is far too difficult and may test the patience of the fighting novice but is an essential purchase for all experienced fight fans seeking a genuine challenge.

Verdict: 8/10

Characters:

Virtua Fighter 5 is host to two new characters joining the roster of old favourites. Eileen uses a monkey-like technique called Kou-Ken whereas El Blaze is a Rey Mysterio-esque Mexican Lucha Libre wrestler. Below is a list of the 17 characters featured in VF 5 and the level of expertise recommended for mastery of each:

BEGINNER: For players who've never played a beat 'em up, these characters should ease you in gently if you don't know a Tech Roll from a Fig Roll.

El Blaze, Jacky, Lau, Pai.

INTERMEDIATE: The amateur VF player (like us) who've had a razz on Tekken or Soul Calibur and have an understanding of the beat 'em up basics will feel at home with this lot.

Brad, Kage, Lion, Sarah, Wolf.

EXPERT: If you're a seasoned VF veteran and you want to get better and advance further, then these are the fighters to plump for.

Aoi, Eileen, Jeffry, Lei-Fei, Shun Di, Vanessa.

PROFESSIONAL: So you've been playing Virtua Fighter since it first hit the arcades and you've become an elite fighter capable of executing combos without a second thought. You're probably sneering at this article because you already know everything there is to know about VF.

Akira, Goh.

Review: The Darkness (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360. Starbreeze Studios, 2K Games.)

If there's one inescapable truth in gaming, it's that licensed games, be they TV, movie, or comic book adaptations usually tend to suck. There are of course always exceptions to the rule such as the recent Scarface (2006) effort, which avoided categorisation as a crappy movie tie-in, by being a pretty solid GTA clone with some good ideas thrown into the mix. Then we’re subjected to stagnant bilge like the new Transformers game and we remember why licences receive such a bad rap in the first place.
So it's with pleasure that we report that The Darkness, based upon a cult Top Cow comic book is actually a really good game. You may frown upon learning that the game is yet another entry in the overly crowded First Person Shooter category. But wait a minute, because The Darkness features some distinctive gameplay devices that raise this above the usual sub-par fare that we’ve come to expect from lazy shooters content to trade upon the same unimaginative shooting galleries starring legions of cloned goons.
Playing as young Mafioso hitman Jackie Estacado the game hurls you headfirst into the action riding in the back seat of a car with two fellow wiseguys up front. It’s a breathless introduction, grabbing your attention and immediately making you want to pursue the narrative. If the game doesn’t manage to live up to its explosive opening sequence it’s because there’s an interesting story going on here, with Jackie experiencing some big changes with the advent of his 21st birthday. You see, our hero is the host for a malignant force called (you guessed it) The Darkness and as such he finds himself developing strange, macabre powers, which manifest themselves in the freakish tentacles and toothy heads that sprout from under his big, leather trench coat. Initially this allows you to send out a snaking head to scout out ahead, crawl through small gaps and bite off the faces of unsuspecting villains. Don’t forget to devour your enemy’s juicy hearts too as this builds up your darkness level increasing the potency of your power. Keep chowing down on the aortic pumps and it’s not long before you’re running enemies through with a whip-like tentacle, tossing cars and other debris through the air or sucking hapless henchmen into portals, spitting them out deader than they were before. The Darkness succeeds in being compulsively playable due to these inventive abilities at your disposal and the opportunities for mucking about that they represent. We spent ages just flinging dead bodies around, seeing if we could roast them over a flaming oil drum or whether we could get them over a roof. Yes and yes in case you were wondering.
However, clever powers count for nothing in a FPS if the shooting is broken and thankfully Starbreeze’s previous experience developing The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay (2004) shines throughout The Darkness. Firstly, there’s a decent range of weapons to wield, including a pair of funky darkness guns and most importantly the gunplay doesn’t disappoint. Squeezing off a few rounds is as enjoyable as it should be and dual wielding twin pistols and uzis is exactly as you’d expect. Our only qualm would be the omission of being able to mix types of gun when dual wielding as we’d have loved to rock an uzi and a pistol at the same time, but then you can’t have it all.
Graphically, The Darkness more than lives up to its title. It’s dark all right and you’ll need to keep it that way in order to summon your demonic innards. When exposed to light, you’ll hear your slithering buddies hiss like a steak on the barby. That’s your cue to extinguish any sources of illumination in the vicinity, an activity that can rapidly prove tiresome after smashing your 900th light bulb. Return to an area and you’ll find that an overzealous caretaker has ran around replacing all of the lights you broke meaning you have to bust them all over again. A tiny niggle rather than a game breaking flaw, but irritating nonetheless.

Atmosfear
The Darkness drips with urban gothic menace as you skulk around the deserted nighttime streets of New York. Lighting is spot-on as you cast tall shadows on the walls and hide away in the shadows to replenish your health. However, the streets can appear a bit samey after a while, with little to separate them. If each of the districts were unnamed, you’d have an extremely hard time finding your way round, as there are no distinctive landmarks or spots lending the area its own identity. There’s the graffiti of Grinder’s Lane, the Church of Trinity Cemetery and the orphanage at St. Mary’s but that’s it. All of the other areas look virtually identical. Between the missions you’re presented with hub area where you’re unable to call upon the darkness and your guns remain firmly holstered. It’s in these talk only subway sections that the game’s momentum grinds to a halt as you’re forced to slowly plod between rubbish NPCs to get the next part of the game going. Try interacting with the majority of these characters and you’ll be met with a boring stock phrase like “We good?”, “Everybody good?”, “You good?” It’s lazy scripting when that’s the best you can come up with for your peripheral characters, especially when every other cast member is so well catered for.
Another thing the game could do without are the patience testing loading screens featuring Estacado spouting some sort of exposition or aside. These aren’t that bad an idea until they start repeating and it’s upon hearing Jackie’s story about racing 90mph in a taxi with his buddy ‘Crazy Abdul’ for the 9th time that you’ll get up to put the kettle on every time.
Another shortcoming is the game’s slender run time, which clocks in at about a good ten hours, meaning we had the game finished inside a week. Usually, there’s a reason to go back to a game like this, but there’s little replay incentive beyond the usual collectible concept art and other gubbins. There’s a perfectly serviceable online multiplayer, which extends the game’s lifespan slightly but there are other more enticing online pursuits currently available.

The Darkness stands out as a largely well thought out and clever use of a comic book license that is for the most part an extremely fun and interesting shooter with a twist. With a mesmerizing, cinematic narrative that grips right from the off, The Darkness features some of the best voice acting we’ve ever encountered in a videogame. Its flaws are numerous, but none are so significant that they manage to ruin what turns out to be one of the most enjoyable and compelling games currently available. It may not be as accomplished a blaster as the likes of Half Life or BioShock but it’s still more than deserving of your attention.
Submit to The Darkness: 8/10

This Month: The Shed Loves NInjas.

To celebrate the punishing sadism of Ninja Gaiden Sigma and the game itself by extension, we thought we'd take a look at the greatest games to ever feature ninjas. As there aren't actually that many, we thought we'd tenuously include games where ninjas aren't even the star, then decided not to.

Revenge Of Shinobi (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, 1989): The original Shinobi hit arcades in 1987 as a colourful side-scrolling slash 'em up starring series ninja poster boy Joe Musashi against the evil 'Zeed' clan. Next to the sequel, Revenge of Shinobi, the first game looks primitive by comparison. Revenge is where Musashi really hit his stride boasting far superior graphics, mental bosses that bizarrely included Batman, Spider-Man and an Arnie lookalike who had a Terminator endoskeleton. Hmmm. No wonder there were copyright issues in the original version. Some of these characters were later removed or modified, like the Godzilla boss who Sega transformed into a skeletal version of the same thing. Good work. Clearly, the 'Neo Zeed' clan will employ anyone to stop Musashi in his tracks.
Revenge Of Shinobi was a tough nut to crack although you could ease the burden with an infinite shuriken cheat. Even with the cheat enabled, the game was an unforgiving gauntlet of patience-shredding stages where a game over screen was never far away. The Shed is proud to have completed the game countless times, but not so proud to announce that only one of these times was without cheating. Cheat or no cheat, Revenge Of Shinobi still stands as a harsh but fair slice of 2D ninja action, firmly old school, incredibly cool and it's aged pretty well too. Well, sort of. Still hate that Labyrinth stage though.

Shadow Dancer: The Secret Of The Shinobi (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, 1991): Joe Musashi returns once again in the Mega Drive port of the 1990 arcade classic that saw the famous ninja partnering up with a dog named Yamato to avenge his master's death. In the Japanese version you played as Musashi's son Hayate, which makes no difference really, just a bit of useless trivia. All in all it's another excuse for another 2D side-scrolling ninja throwdown, this time taking on the 80's-metal-band-sounding 'Union Lizard' clan. Riiiiight. With a colour pallette that tended to adhere to grey and um, more grey, Shadow Dancer still retained an effortless cool, reinforced by the ability to command a mutt to do some of your dirty work for you. However, the missing option of commanding Yamato to cock his leg and take a piss on a bad guy seems like a missed opportunity to us. Sadly, we never made it past stage 4 (there were only 5 stages, so that's not that bad!) but we remember elaborate bosses, rock-hard platform challenges including a section that took place in intermittent pitch darkness. The original arcade version was also nails...does anyone sense a pattern emerging here? Yes, ALL ninja games are fuckin' rock solid!

Tenchu: Wrath Of Heaven (PlayStation 2, 2003): Not the best of the Tenchu series you might argue and you'd be half-right. Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (1998) on the first PlayStation possessed a unique atmosphere and married two elements that had been screaming out to be combined forever. That is ninjas and stealth. All of the components were present and correct right from the start, ninja gadgets like grappling hooks, caltrops, smoke bombs et al. Animation was spot-on, protagonists Rikimaru and Ayame were cool as were their athletic abilities and tasty stealth execution moves. All the sequels could do is build on this established successful formula as it was already so well-formed in the first game. Tenchu 2: Birth of The Stealth Assassins (2000) added a decent level editor and new character Tatsumaru but was essentially more of the same. For us, the best Tenchu game was the third in the series making its debut on the PS2, featuring nice, smooth, if occasionally flaky graphics and get this...a really fuckin' steep difficulty curve. Fortunately, Wrath Of Heaven maintained the awesome atmospherics that initially made the series so unique, enhanced by beautiful acoustic strings and visual flourishes like rain and falling blossom. Packing in a bunch of bonuses like a new character who used needles to kill and a level set in the present day helped keep the third Tenchu fresh, even in the midst of taking on a frustrating level like the cemetery. It's games like Wrath Of Heaven that make us wish we were a ninja.

The Ninja (Sega Master System, 1986): Okay, not actually a good game but deserving of mention for being the single most hideously difficult game ever conceived. A top-down scrolling fighter, you played as a slow-moving, inept ninja with the singular goal of reaching the top of the level. Momentarily turning invisible didn't help matters as you quickly became plagued by superior enemies like bouncing boulders that would ensure a short-lived and thoroughly unpleasant gaming experience. A truly horrendous little game that has scarred our brain for life: the only truly hateful game to feature a ninja protagonist. Its only saving grace is its ability to induce fits of laughter at its inherent silliness. It's games like The Ninja that make us wish ninjas would go away.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma (PlayStation 3, 2007): Obviously. Ryu Hayabusa is the coolest ninja on any console, period. He's also the best character in the Dead Or Alive series, although he's not actaully cool enough to steer us away from playing as pneumatically breasted uber-babes. Sorry, Ryu. Check out the review below for more.

Too many ninjas: MK, SFII, Final Fight, Streets Of Rage, Tekken, Soul Calibur, Onimusha...

Review: Ninja Gaiden Sigma (PlayStation 3. Team Ninja, Tecmo)

<~ Ryu is pretty damn agile, able to perform acrobatics that put the foppish Prince Of Persia to shame. Ryu's far cooler too.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma is an extensive rejig of the Xbox classic featuring a raft of new features bringing Ryu Hayabusa back-flipping into the current generation. Essentially a remake of a remake, Sigma may sound like money for old rope but actually represents the perfect opportunity for non-Xbox owning gamers out there to sample the delights of arguably the greatest game to ever feature a ninja. Most obvious of these enhancements is a slick visual revamp, meaning that Sigma is one of the most aesthetically pleasing games on PS3. Also new to this version is the ability to play as the improbably endowed Rachel who only featured as a non-playable periphery character in the original games. Her chapters peppered throughout the game, whilst enjoyable in their own right, succeed in interrupting the game’s flow with their relatively sluggish fight sequences. After lithely rolling and flipping around as Ryu, playing as Rachel with her giant warhammer comes as kind of a drag. However, from a male perspective these sections are certainly easy on the eye and therefore forgivable.

We love Rachel, for obvious reasons. ~>

Thankfully, the rest of the game has retained its intense gameplay and intuitive control system, meaning that doling out lethal, ninja justice is as satisfying as ever. Of course, Ninja Gaiden wouldn’t be Ninja Gaiden without being harder than diamonds and on this front Sigma remains tooth grindingly challenging, without ever being unfair. So unashamedly old school and relentlessly tough as it is, you’ll refuse to give in. After dying three consecutive times you’re presented with the proposition of abandoning the Way Of The Ninja and continuing the game in easy or ‘Ninja Dog’ mode. If you’re anything like us, you’ll see this offer as both insulting and patronising choosing to stick with the current difficulty setting believing that you have the capacity to gradually improve and evolve into a gaming god. Either that or you’ll spin the disc into the nearest bin. There’ll be tears, broken pads and strong, sexual swearing, but in the end it’s worth it. Gaiden possesses that distinct quality, what we call the ‘one-more-go’ factor. Giver of the tough love as it is, you’ll still go back for more, like some sort of gaming sadist. Take the latter part of stage 6 for example. You’re still relatively new to the game, there are twenty stages in total, so you’re not that far in. Saving at the levels last save point you’re instantly assaulted by three enemies throwing explosive kunai. Once dispatched you come to an open area where soldiers jump you. This is the easiest bit and you can even go back and save if you like. Six ninjas, two machine-gunning bikers with sidecars and three fire-breathing demons later and you’re ready to give up. Thankfully a cut scene begins and you relax, safe in the knowledge that it doesn’t matter that you’ve expended every health-replenishing spirit elixir from your inventory. Then you’re faced with the end of level boss because sometimes Ninja Gaiden likes to kick you while you’re down. If this sounds a bit much, then maybe Sigma isn’t the game for you.
The high difficulty level creates an illusion of extended longevity as most of the hours you put in playing the game are made up of dying and retrying, unless unlike us you’re unnaturally gifted at frenetic hack and slash. However, there is a wide range of challenges making for a substantial wedge of game for your money that longevity is definitely not an issue. You’ll be playing Gaiden for the best part of a year, that is assuming that you’re a normal, well adjusted gamer (unlike us, sun-fearing, gaming vampires).
Fundamentally, Gaiden’s innate playability is all down to the flawlessly implemented control scheme, which allows you to effortlessly execute an array of dazzling combos whilst looking obscenely cool. However, all of this amounts to nothing if you don’t immediately learn to block and evade, skills that veteran players will tell you are key to survival, as a few gouges from even early enemies will kill Ryu dead.
Sigma is an awesome remake of an already accomplished game, but if you currently own Ninja Gaiden Black or the original, it probably isn’t worth you parting with your cash once again, even if Sigma is undoubtedly the definitive iteration.
Ninpo: 8/10

Movie Review: The Simpsons Movie (July, 2007)

So, it's finally here. The greatest TV programme ever made, debuting on the big screen intact, yellow-skinned and four fingered like always. As massive fans of the show, watching since the age of eight when The Simpsons first began, our expectations have reached a feverishly high level for the long awaited movie version. And by and large it doesn't disappoint, it just doesn't quite meet our lofty expectations. But it's The Simpsons, on the big screen, which makes it inherently bulletproof. First of all, there's the initial shock of seeing The Simpsons at your local multiplex, larger than life to overcome. After 17 years of comfortable small screen viewing, it's simultaneously strange and exciting to see Springfield's residents on blown-up on celluloid.

The Simpsons Movie completely belongs to Homer; his own unique brand of endearing stupidity sets the plot's wheels in motion when he adopts a pig from Krusty Burger. To elaborate further would mar the experience, after all, the trailer has already given away some of the funniest scenes (Spider-Pig for instance). As expected, The Simpsons Movie plays out in much the same way as an extended episode would, albeit an episode that is four times longer than normal. Unfortunately, the story is so centred upon a certain set of characters that a lot of the supporting cast are inevitably marginalized. Most criminally of all, especially given the nature of the movie's story, is the lack of screen time for Mr. Burns. With such a massive universe, that some characters aren't catered for was to be expected. It's just a shame that certain favourites are pushed into the background or don't appear at all. Bizarrely, the movie is also bereft of the kind of in-jokes and movie references that are normally peppered throughout Simpsons episodes. Thankfully the knowing wit and sharp satire remains (Schwarzenegger in the White House) making the movie unmistakeably the work of the genius team of writers who have collectively managed to keep the show fresh for all these years.
Any criticisms levelled at The Simpsons Movie melt into insignificance once it gets going. From the very beginning, it's wall-to-wall gags, making The Simpsons Movie pound-for-pound funnier than any other comedy movie you're likely to see. Given the sheer volume of comical material on offer here, there’s bound to be a few that don't hit the target, but fortunately these don't detract from the rest of the film's funnies.
The Simpsons Movie is a hugely enjoyable film that successfully transports America's most dysfunctional family to cinemas. That it's consistently funny, engaging and massive fun is testament to the longevity of The Simpsons. And if Maggie's final word during the movie’s credits is to be believed, we haven't seen the last of The Simpsons on the big screen. Woohoo!
****

Hands on with the Heavenly Sword demo.

Our eyes light up! Our palms perspirate a bit! We even pee our pants a little! It's only a bloody demo of Heavenly Sword on the PlayStation Store! One hasty download later and we're ready to go. First impressions are promising as we bypass the lovely title menu, checking out the options and memorizing a few combos before we delve headlong into the action. After a slick expositional cut scene with heroine Nariko sharing a moment with her sister we find ourselves thrown straight into a breathtaking quick time sequence with Nariko sliding down ropes, leaping left and right as they're severed by the bad guys below. Successfully navigating this treacherous rope slide we drop from above ready to bring the pain to the gits who tried to end us. Swipe! Slash! Scratch one bad guy as we land on his head with the business end of our blade. So far so good.

But then we get into the real meat of the action and well, it's exactly what we feared. It's like bloody Genji or Dynasty Warriors: in short it's a button masher, nothing like the complex slasher we were hoping for. Early hype suggested a game mechanic similar to God Of War, Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry but it shares little in common with these great titles. What makes Heavenly Sword so frustrating is the glaring lack of a block or jump button, it's a huge omission, magnified by the fact that an older game- Ninja Gaiden has both block and jump buttons and feels so much more fluid, thanks to it's intuitive control scheme. Blocking in Heavenly Sword involves standing still, which just feels wrong during a frenetic sword battle. Jumping is replaced by a clumsily implemented evade move mapped to the right analog stick, which is not only ineffective but it's also easy to forget that it's there.

On a more positive tip, Heavenly Sword's combat looks outstanding when you're in full flow, even if you are just blindly pawing at the buttons like a chimp at a typewriter. There's an almost hypnotic quality to the action that almost dupes you into forgetting Heavenly Sword's flaws. Swordplay incorporates three stances to expand the combos on offer. You have your standard battle stance-just bash buttons wildly for best results-then there's ranged attacks which work like Kratos' chains in God Of War, unleashed by holding L1 as you attack. Finally, there's the power stance-hold R1-which gives you slow...wait for it, yes, powerful attacks to swipe enemies into the air unlocking potential for juggling moves. Mixing the three stances is a snap and makes the list of moves at your disposal nearly inexhaustible. A quick tap of O when your special meter's ready allows you to perform a fancy kill move on an unfortunate opponent, but this feels like initiating a cut scene rather than brilliantly executing a well-timed finisher. It has none of the instant satisfaction of say, tearing off limbs in God Of War, or transforming into a demon a la Devil May Cry. However, being able to throw virtually any object with a quick tap of X is a nice touch, particularly as you can throw dead bodies, barrels, discarded weapons, rocks...anything.

Heavenly Sword is achingly beautiful to behold, smooth and visually accomplished but ultimately a bit of a disappointment. We just hope that Ninja Theory delay the imminent release to spruce up the controls a bit, otherwise they may just squander the chance to give PS3 its first genuine killer app. What PS3 doesn't need is another Genji, what it needs is an iconic, console defining title and we had high hopes for the flame-haired Nariko to fly the flag on Sony's machine. We'll be sitting tight, praying we don't have to fly the white flag when Heavenly Sword reaches PlayStation 3 on September 14th.

Resident Evil 5: Is This The Scariest Resi Yet?

For months now details on Resident Evil 5 have been scarcer than talking monkeys. All we've had is the initial teaser trailer then a sloooooow drip feed of tiny tidbits of information. Infuriating! But now Capcom have seen fit to finally release a more accomplished trailer revealing that the game will retain the new over-the-shoulder perspective that made Resi 4 such a groundbreaking instalment in the hugely successful survival horror series. Additionally the traditional T-Virus zombies and Las Plagas infected are taking a break to make way for a new breed of fleet-footed uber-zombie bastards. In the trailer we see aggressive gangs of zombified villagers wielding machetes and scythes, knocking Redfield to the ground, stomping him like a group of happy-slapper chavs outside Mc.Donalds, wide-eyed and absolutely terrifying.

Resi 5 will star Resident Evil stalwart Chris Redfield, as we'd already guessed but this time he's working for the BSAA, whoever they are. So far there's been no allusion to the shady, omnipotent Umbrella Corporation and no sign of series villain and Val Kilmer wannabe, Albert Wesker...yet. However to write off the possibility of an Umbrella resurgence would be stupid, absent as they were from the last game, it would be timely to have the all-powerful, evil corporation making a comeback.

Also present in the trailer is a tantalising glimpse of the much vaunted light and dark gameplay element. When Chris enters the hut to see a native having his face chewed off by two fellow villagers, we see that Chris's eyes have to adjust to the darker environment. It appears to be a well implemented feature that could enhance the scares when moving from light to dark and vice versa. In this scene we see the aforementioned savaged geezer scramble up to his feet, his eyes and nose bleed before he leaps at Chris. This means that when natives are bitten, the infection is accelerated so that the transformation is virtually instantaneous. Wow. Maybe those Umbrella fruitcakes decide to fuse their T-Virus with the Las Plagas?! Logically, this could be the case as it would mean that your enemies possess attributes of both viruses, which would explain the potent mixture of speed and intelligence that these new zombies exhibit. Scary stuff.
Luckily, it looks as if Chris has been spending his spare time in the gym beefing up. At one point in the trailer he kicks the zombie hordes back, just like Leon in Resi 4, but-get this-he follows it up with a meaty right hook. Yeah! Punch that zombie in his rotten face!!

<~ At the very end of the trailer this bint submerged in water opens her eyes in a typically sinister fashion. Who is she?

Aesthetically, Resi 5 looks as if it will utilise the same down and dirty, dusty brown colour pallette as Resi 4, upping the grimy detail for next-gen consoles. Early specualation that the game would take place in a sun drenched European locale have been eschewed by the ethnicity of the natives. Resi 5 is set in what appears to be an oppressive African regime, hinted at by the Idi Amin-esque dictatorial guy with the aviators wielding the megaphone. We're thinking maybe Haiti or Uganda? Either way, Resi 5 is shaping up to be one of the hottest titles for 2008 and our eyes are already bleeding in anticipation. Yeeeargh!!

Resident Evil 5 is pencilled in for an early 2008 release, subject to slippage of course. Check out the full uncut E3 trailer at the PlayStation Store.

Movie Review: Zodiac (May, 2007)

During the late 1960s and ‘70s, Northern California was gripped by the ongoing investigations surrounding the notorious Zodiac killer. To this day the elusive serial killer remains unapprehended and the case was reopened in March of this year despite being marked as ‘inactive’ since April 2004. Great material for a slow burn thriller then and who better than David Fincher, who has previously brought visceral cops versus killer thrills to the big screen with Se7en (1995) to bring the story to vivid life. Fincher’s latest foray into the serial killer genre is a taut, atmospheric picture evoking such a strong sense of time and place that it’s impossible not to be instantly drawn in. Those expecting the glossy thrills of Se7en may feel slightly short-changed however as Zodiac is a movie that revels in the intricacy of details and authenticity, having more in common with films like All The President’s Men (1976) or LA Confidential (1997).
Zodiac is the darkest treat of the year, a film punctuated by starkly chilling murder sequences, real and spontaneous in their depiction of violence, they manage to be both minimalistic and shocking, the antithesis to the gratuitous, desensitising brutality portrayed in the likes of Hostel or Saw. In other words, effective in their own stripped down, perfunctory way.
At the heart of the movie are the fantastic central performances from the stellar cast. Mark Ruffalo is fantastic as the harried cop on the Zodiac case, Inspector Toschi, enveloped in the complex assignment to bring the killer to justice. Anthony Edwards offers solid support as his long-suffering partner, Inspector Armstrong. Robert Downey Jr. is typically reliable as acerbic journo, Paul Avery but best of all is Jake Gyllenhaal who is outstanding as the man who provided the movie’s inspiration with his brace of books based upon the Zodiac investigation, Robert Graysmith. Graysmith is a man who managed to be completely consumed by the Zodiac case, marginalizing his family and risking his own life, unearthing clues in an attempt to unravel the Zodiac killer’s identity. We’re there the entire way alongside him; helpless voyeurs watching a man and his family slowly fall apart as his obsession escalates. We’re there for the entire ride, through media hyperbole, red herrings, possible suspects, all leading up to the inescapable conclusion.
Zodiac may confound your expectations being unlike any of Fincher's previous work. It’s a deep and meticulous exploration of the men’s lives that were adversely affected by the eponymous killer. Two of these men, San Francisco Chronicle journalist Avery and editorial cartoonist Graysmith are brought to the fore as the recipients of the Zodiac’s infamous, menacing letters. Poorly spelt, boasting letters that ensured the Zodiac’s place in history despite committing just five confirmed kills. It was his taunting relationship with the media that perpetuated the ongoing myth of the Zodiac killer leading to numerous copycats, faked correspondence and movies like Dirty Harry (1971), which featured a maniacal sniper named ‘Scorpio’, based upon the Zodiac killer.

Zodiac is a spectacular achievement, Fincher dispenses with his trademark flashy directing style to deliver a master class in suspenseful moviemaking. Not only is it an ambitious and fully realised piece of cinema, but it is both challenging and enthralling as well as beautifully shot and flawlessly acted. At two and a half hours long it should feel like a draining slog yet it never does, thoughtfully slow-paced it still manages to effortlessly keep you hooked for the duration. Riveting.
****

Zodiac is out on DVD in the UK on 24th September.

Give Resistance a new lease of life.

Sometimes here at The Shed we get a little bored and frustrated with certain games. It's all part and parcel of having a short attention span. So, whilst playing a two player deathmatch on Resistance: Fall Of Man with the point limit set to 250, mine and my brother's interest began to gradually wane. Rather than quitting to the main menu and starting a quicker, less time-consuming match, we decided to see who could commit the most elaborate suicide. And so the Resistance Suicide Olympics was born.

You'd be amazed at how compulsive blowing yourself up with a well-aimed grenade can be. Throw one just in front of yourself, run into it, time a jump and you can perform graceful aerial flips and spins. Watch with morbid glee at the ragdoll physics sending your hapless body through the air and then respawn and do it all over again.
At the Resistance suicide Olympics, there are hundreds of possibilities, numerous acrobatic variations to subject your poor ragdoll puppet to (note: not quite as satisfying with Chimera). It's not long before you'll be setting yourself alight, throwing an explosive near a third story window and challenging yourself to flip your character out of it. Alternatively, why not blow yourself up so that your corpse cartwheels through a car windscreen? Why not? In Resistance only mind you...The Shed does not condone real life suicide. Keep it virtual, people!
You might also like to try this in any game that possesses humorous ragdoll physics, high environments and oodles of explosives. Go on...give it a go. It's no substitute for fragging a buddy, but it sure is a funny diversion, in a twisted kind of way.
Gotta go. Medication time.

Note weird foetal position in this one. Eerie. Almost makes you want to stop blowing the poor fella up. Almost... ~>

Review: Calling All Cars! (PlayStation 3, EDI. Incognito, Sony)

Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the best. Calling All Cars!' concept is infinitely beautiful in it's simplicity. From David Jaffe, the guy who brought us epic, mythological carnage in God Of War, Calling All Cars! is essentially a fusion of Micro Machines and old playground mainstay, 'tag.' Calling All Cars!' aim is to capture an escaped criminal and return him to jail. This can be achieved in a variety of ways, the easiest of which is running the apprehended crook straight through the prison's front door. Doing this only earns you a solitary point with two awarded for delivery to a slightly less convenient entrance. You can grab yourself three points by ramming the crim into the back of a paddy wagon or by dropping him at the least accessible prison entrance. Picking up four points means having to jab L2 for a nitro boost in order to pursue the helicopter, which you have to stick with for a couple of seconds before the writhing detainee is banged up properly. Nabbing five points is rare as you have to keep your eyes and ears open for the elusive red paddy wagon, but it's worth it as it can turn a game around in one fell swoop. And remember, you can't hold onto the slippery reprobate for long as after a while he'll escape. A host of wacky weapons help you keep hold of the crim and take him back when your opponents manage to ram you to steal him away (like 'tag,' see?). Inevitably, with the four of you scrambling to capture the same convict, things get pretty noisy and chaotic, pretty quickly. Like all great multi-player games, Calling All Cars! truly comes to life with a few mates (even moreso with booze).

As you've probably already gathered, The Shed is loving Calling All Cars! It's an unadulterated slice of old school multi-player mayhem, presented in gorgeous cartoony-exaggerated, cel-shaded, HD-O-Vision. Calling All Cars! is made all the more enjoyable due to it's wonderfully realised, quirky, cartoon charm; loopy music and brilliantly manic Oirish commentator ("Prison's frozen laddy! Go for the paddy wagon!"). In single player, it's diverting, but not nearly as much fun as playing with three drunk mates. But, then the same can be said of most games made with multi-player in mind. Once you've unlocked all of the single player vehicles, you probably won't bother revisiting it. Also, only having four stages-although all four vary significantly- limits replayability somewhat (more to download please). In multi-player however, Calling All Cars!' longevity is nigh-on infinite, like Shed multi-player faves Mashed and Micro Machines V3, Calling All Cars!' pick-up and play appeal will have you hooked for ages as long as you have mates. That's got to be worth a piffling £4.99, surely? Don't think so? Then maybe it's you we should be chucking into the paddy wagon. Laddy.
Score: 8/10