Fanboys! A question for you.

My question is this. 

What is it that turns normal game fans into rabid fanboys?

I have been thinking about this in the last few weeks. There are several factors that i have identified involved in fanboy generation.

1 The lack of money to own all games systems

This is the simplest to understand, if you can't get enough money together to own a PS3 Xbox360 and Wii then you will probably be under 15 years of age. You will get one of these systems from your parents for Christmas and that is all that is needed, instant fanboy. Imagine the scenario, little Johnny gets a PS3 and after a few months is spewing lies in every forum he can manage to log into about how Gear of war and Halo are rubbish. The simple truth is that Johnny looks at the videos for Xbox and Wii exclusives that look cool and is jealous. He then tries to feel good about it by denying that these games are worth playing. It is very easy understand the logic in this and I doubt many people will argue with this point. If PS3 fanboys are about to stop reading then reverse the analogy and say Johnny gets and Xbox and rants about Killzone2 and God of War looking last gen.

2 The need to identify with a club/gang/belonging

Imagine the scenario, Johnny buys an Xbox, he goes online playing Halo and has a good time with his team mates, one or two of them add them to his friends list, and they chat along whilst playing other games. They mention forums they go to. Johnny joins them as well. Johnny meets more and more like minded people and enjoys it. Now notice that I am not stereotyping Johnny as a nerdy no mates in real life. The sharing of interests has long been the building blocks of friendship in any area of life. Simply put Johnny finds friends through his gaming Hobby and feels a part of something.

3 The instinct to defend the underdog

Now I am looking mainly at the community surrounding the news aggregator N4G when I thought of this argument. I have been reading the news on N4G from before it was named that, when there used to be individual news sites for each console. Well I remember going to a news for 360 gamers site that N4G eventually became. Then the comments were added. It stopped being news only and became a battleground. Xbox fans would dig up anti-PS3 news and visa versa. The comments were full of open hostility. A bubble system and agree/disagree system were introduced to actively give fanboys weapons against each other. They could report and shut each other up.

As time passed the Xbox 360 was released and it's news ruled the roost with only previews and talk of hardware and pricing of the imminent PS3 release to fan the flamewars. PS3 fans  pointed to games on the horizon and told the Xbox fans that their brief rule would soon be at an end when the PS3 arrived and blew everyone away.

Once the PS3 arrived it was full scale war on the comparison video articles for multi-platfrom games, both sides pull down the exclusive games of the other console. As the PS3 slowly catches the Xbox360 in sales and popularity PS3 fans smell the scent of victory and Xbox fans become more viscous. Now if you read between the lines in the comments section there seems to be a group of mainly PS3 fans who state on many an occasion that when the 360 was at it's peak before the PS3 release on N4G. Which is a lie as N4G in it's present form only existed around the PS3 launch. Never mind that though, these PS3 fans claim that there were more XBOX fanboys than PS3 fanboys and the comment sections were a biased mess in favour of the Xbox. The reason they say that is that today N4G is around 90% PS3 fanboys arguing with themselves about what they perceive XBOX fans will say about their consoles failings and victories. Look at it now, go on, almost any article. Sure there are some diehard Xbox fans still around poking the beehive for fun, but mostly it's just PS3 fans warding off the bogeymen with mantras of victory for a console and a company that doesn't need cheerleaders, it only needs them to part with the cash for said games.

Now how does this generate a fanboy? If you take the motive of revenge or defense of the underdog as the root of the fanboy phenomenon then it makes a little sense. Imagine you have one of the consoles through choice/loyalty or financial constraints. You come to N4G and see nothing but a front page full of attacks on your console, how does it make you feel. Angry, confused? After all you have a great time playing games on your console. What do you do about it? You might even be angry enough about the unjust and unfounded attacks by a group of people hiding behind their keyboards to respond to them. There it is, the start, you get angered by something you see that isn't true, because in these comment section fanboys lie to you.

They say that Gears of war 2 has broken multiplayer, that Killzone2 can't manage to get a co-op mode because the PSN is rubbish. At that moment you are not responding as a fanboy, it's all rational thought. You played Gears 2 horde mode just ten minutes ago and had a great time. PSN is for the most part lag free due to dedicated servers you think, because Warhawk always plays as smooth as butter. At that moment something is set in motion like a snowball rolling down a hill. You start looking for the comments to see what people are saying about game x and y. You start to argue back. Someone name calls you and you argue with them on a personal level. You start getting private messages from other same console fans expressing admiration for how you stuck it to the enemy. You add them on your friends list, and so it begins. Back to the second point of joining a club and belonging.

4 You have a genuine thing about only having one games console.

I have heard people talk about this many times. For reasons know only to the individual they will prefer a certain brand of electronics for instance. I think Sony encapsulate this trend more out of all the console manufacturers as they produce televisions phones etc as well as the console. People that I know have only Sony hardware because they feel they have a reputation for the best products and reliability. If they are shopping for something they will check to see if Sony make it and buy from them even if they can find the product at half the price from another manufacturer. The reason is simple that Sony have a good reputation for products that work well. Now I could argue that until the cows come home, but I would never change their mind It's something that person seems genetically predisposed to do, and good luck to them, nothing wrong in that inherently.

For similar reasons games fans gravitate to a console and it's perceived traditional games. There is a big Japanophile trend in gaming and many will go with Sony or Nintendo for that reason. Some people got a NES as a first console as a kid and stick with Nintendo religiously, staunchly ignoring with not even a hint of jealousy the exclusive games on other consoles.

An awful lot of casual gamers buy a console for one game, in the UK I know a lot of men who bought a PS2 for football games like Fifa and PES and buy nothing else, same can be said for girls who buy Singstar and nothing else. The old casual gamers that Nintendo is trying to catch and make sure they keep on buying different casual games.

5 Some people like the arguing debating and in some cases bullying that goes on in forums.

It can get ugly on N4G, people are cruel, spelling, grammar and debating skills all better be up to scratch. You have to be able to spin like a politician if you want your console to look good after reports of depressing sales numbers for the month. It's hard work being a fanboy, you have to have a good standard of education to avoid being owned out there, (how I hate that term "owned"). Some people seem to get off on that, they will stalk their prey, the one or two word commenters, the ones with poor spelling or the propensity to use swear words instead of language. They stalk them like lame animals through a jungle and pounce with their razor sharp wit. It is a form of bullying, the jock picking on the nerd if you will. Safe behind the anonymity and the keyboard where some feel powerful, and the pen can indeed be mightier than the sword. This adds to the list then, power tripping.

So we have

1). Can't afford more than one system

2). Belonging

3). Anger and defense at perceived injustice

4). Genuine unbiased brand preference for a system and it's games

5). Enjoy a debate

6). Like bullying people online

Now I really want to hear from people in response to this and ask the question is it any of the above that makes you a fanboy. If you have any other suggestions for the root cause of fanboyism then I would love to hear that also.

Xbox 360 V PS3 Exclusive warfare

Watching N4G comments and news articles over the first two or three months of this and the past year there seems to be a trend developing. The News articles written in December and January, traditionally a slow two months for video game releases, are usually filled with Game of the year and speculation articles about the next year. A lot of console X or console Y dominated the year articles are now increasing. Games that are coming in the next year are touted to be better than the games on a rival console and arguments ensue.

Microsoft seems to have adopted a policy since E3 07 of not talking about games unless they are six months away. Peter Moore said this on stage, all the games that he showed were going to be on game store shelves by Christmas, and he wasn't lying. This policy has continued ever since for Microsoft. The reveals of the past can't be erased, as evidenced by the continual no-show of Alan Wake. It does seem that they are trying to keep games in development hidden until the game is six months from release. This policy is good in a way. No vapor ware games being shown and eagerly awaited stroke hyped to oblivion before release, no disappointment if a game is delayed.

The negative side to this is that Sony continue to carry on the policy of a large majority of the gaming sector and hype products that are little more than preliminary renders or concept art. Now this isn't a swipe a Sony. The industry as a whole does this. If your product only gets released once a year it pays to keep your company in the public eye by showing preliminary work on your game before release. Good internet and word of mouth buzz on a product is the difference between say Littlebigplanet and Too human. The latter having such a shocking cloud of negativity attached that a reasonably good game was totally sunk. Whereas Littlebigplanet had a long time in the public eye before release but almost all the press was positive.

With this in mind looking at the exclusive slate for the Xbox360 for 2009 the cupboard seems bare. Alan Wake might come, there is the Halo Wars and the Halo 3 expansion. Whereas Sony have been carrying on releasing tidbits about many of the games they have in production. Infamous, Heavy Rain, MAG, God of War 3 Uncharted 2 Gran Turismo 5 etc. None of these games has a release date most of them will come out in late 2009 and more than likely a few will release in 2010. I would be prepared to put money on God of War 3, MAG and Gran Turisimo 5 not coming this year. Infamous, Uncharted 2 and Heavy Rain I think we will see mid year or around the November Frenzy of releases.

So taking away the uncertainties of the future, how do past exclusive releases stack up?
I have taken a list of 21 games exclusive to each console. Looked up metacritic and vgchartz for sales and scores figures.

This list is not meant to be complete, it's 21 games chosen mainly by looking at my own games collection. I decided to limit it to the same amount of games for both consoles and any missing games you may think of, like Tales of Vesperia, Star Ocean 4, Socom etc are missing simply because I live in the UK and those games are not released here yet. I have listed only games for the Xbox 360 that are at time of writing exclusive to the console. I could have added in Gears of war 1, Mass effect and Left 4 dead, which have PC versions as well, but I have decided to go purely with titles that are only available on the Xbox360 for it's list. Which probably hobbles it's scores quite a lot, however this is platform exclusivity we are arguing about here and Microsoft have shot themselves in the foot in this area by releasing PC versions of most of their games.


PS3 only games
Little Big Planet 95 2.02m
Killzone 2 91 N/A
Metal Gear Solid 4 94 3.88m
Resistance Fall of Man 86 3.54m
Resistance 2 87 1.44m
Ratchet and Clank Future 89 1.61m
Valkyria Chronicles 87 0.35m
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 88 0.39m
Gran Tourismo 5 Prologue 80 2.94m
Everybody's Golf World Tour 81 0.70m
Uncharted Drakes Fortune 88 2.60m
Motorstorm 82 3.83m
Motorstorm : Pacific Rift 81 0.79m
Warhawk 84 0.49m
Heavenly sword 79 1.41m
Ridge Racer 7 78 0.65m
Folklore 75 0.20m
Eye of Judgement 75 0.27m
Disgaea 78 0.21m
Lair 53 0.41m
Haze 55 0.67m

1706 out of 2100 = 81.2%
28.4m total sales

Xbox 360 only games
Halo 3 94 9.13m
Gears of War 2 93 4.62m
Forza Motorsport 2 90 4.38m
Fable 2 89 2.60m
Project Gotham 4 85 1.77m
Project Gotham 3 88 1.52m
Halo Wars 82 N/A
Saints Row 81 2.80m
Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts 80 0.55m
Viva Pinata : Trouble in Paradise 82 0.36m
Crackdown 83 1.54m
Ninja Gaiden 2 81 1.00m
Perfect dark zero 81 1.47m
Lost Odyssey 78 0.91m
Amped 3 72 0.14m
Kameo 79 0.74m
Blue Dragon 79 0.62m
Infinite Undiscovery 68 0.46m
Too human 65 0.58m
Viva Pinata: Party Animals 56 0.31m
Bullet Witch 55 0.10m

1661 out of 2100 = 79.0%
35.6m sales

Now, how can we spin these figures, lets have a go for each console.

PS3
21 PS3 exclusives have sold 28.4 million copies, with an install base of only 20 million. These 21 games have a combined score of 81.2% on metacritic. 13 games have scored above 80% on metacritic. Three games score more than 90% making them AAA games. PS3 exclusives score higher on metacritic than Xbox360 comparable games.

Xbox 360
21 Xbox360 exclusives have sold 35.5 million copies. These games have a combined score of 79% on metacritic and 13 of them score 80% and above. Three games score more than 90% making them AAA games. Xbox 360 exclusives have sold 7.2 million more than comparable PS3 exclusives.

As an aside to doing this research for this blog post I also came across 23 games for the xbox 360 that are multi platform but not available on PS3. They are:-

Mass Effect
Gears of War
Left 4 dead
The Last Remnant
Shadowrun
Viva Pinata
Hitman : Blood money
Far cry instincts Predator
Condemned
Prey
Lord of the rings : Battle for middle Earth
Just Cause
Tomb raider legend
Dead Rising
Rockstar table tennis
The Godfather
Battlefield 2 : Modern Combat
Superman Returns
Two worlds
Call of Duty 2
Quake 4
Eragon
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter

Where does this leave us? I'll tell you where, right back where we started with a huge swathe of time wasted that I could have spent playing games. They both are fairly equal, sales are slightly higher for the Xbox360 scores slightly higher for the PS3. Nobody is winning apart from the people that make the games and have seen a combined income from 64 million game sales. $3,840 million dollars if you take $60 as the unit price. Wow that is a lot of money, do you really think the people in the offices at Sony and Microsoft need you to argue their case and business strategy? It's time to just buy all the consoles, Wii, Xbox360 and PS3 and just play the games that you like on all platforms.

It doesn't matter if someone who can barely rub two words together and is 10 year old come onto a games forum and spouts utter rubbish about the console of your choice. It really does not matter, look at the evidence above, both the software developers and platform holders are making a huge amount of money out of you. They don't care how much we gamers squabble amongst ourselves. Let's just stop fighting and talk about the games.

It's a common tactic when an article has sensational content designed to make flame wars to say that it's only written for hits. Where do you think the console war has got N4G. How many hits and cash does N4G get out of fanning the console war. How much advertising revenue is made from keeping all this going. The gamer zone is meant to be policed to keep the console war out. Is it? The stupid articles are repeatedly passed, the blogs keep coming. Hell here's one right here :-)

Official Playstation magazine UK to be the UK's Qore?

While reading Edge magazine dated February 2009 I noticed a full page advertisement which seemed to be saying that The official playstation magazine was going to become available on the PSN in 2009.

Touted to have exclusive betas and videos, which sounds very like the Qore magazine that is available on the USA PSN store. Is this finally a UK alternative?The magazine print advertisement directs you to a webpage. On the website is pretty much the print advertisment and a sign up section which wants name, age address and email. Submitting these results in a thanks page and little else. The site promises to enter you into draw to win a copy of Killzone 2.

Apparently the product will only be available in the Uk at launch. It seems to be run by future publishing the publisher behind an awful lot of the UK magazines.

Viking: Battle for Asgard Review

The game is set in Midgard where the Legions of Hel have invaded and all seems lost. The character you will play, Skarin, is wounded and dying and all seems lost. The God Freya comes to him and chooses him as her champion. She gives him an amulet of great power and restores him to health. She then performs magic, which banishes the legion from the village, and leaves Skarin to do her will. Which is to raise an army and lead it against Hel.

During the long course of events as Skarin rebuilds the infrastructure of war, we meet Drakan who is Hel's champion and our nemesis. We find out about Drakan's past as Freya's fallen champion and are led into a quest to find out about Skarin's own heritage. The story builds to a suitable apocalyptic conclusion.

During the game I was enjoying the story, however it did seem to build and build to a great last act only to just stop and give up. Hel is defeated and Skarin sees that he has been used by Freya as a pawn in the God’s games and is left wanting revenge. This game feels more like the start of a trilogy, as if it was meant to have a cliff-hanger to be continued ending. Shame it didn’t as this game wraps up the rest of a two game epic story line in a two or three minute voice over with concept art. The fact that there seems to be no sequels planned leaves a bitter aftertaste. 

The game is set in a series of three free roaming islands each one larger than the last. The first two look similar and summery and the final one is in the grip of winter and has an active volcano with lava all over the place.

The view is third person from behind Skarin. Controls are the usual sticks for movement and camera control. There are slow and fast attacks with various combination button presses leading to differing attacks.

As you wander you can speak to various a.i. characters that give you objectives to complete. 

The objectives are fairly varied though by far the largest mission type is reaching an area where Vikings are imprisoned and freeing them, where they will aid you in battle to free the area from legion occupation. The locations for these skirmishes include farms quarries, distilleries, and lumbar mills. There are also guard towers to liberate, enemy patrols to destroy and items to recover for characters.

Some factions need you to go somewhere specific, kill the larger enemy there and bring back a trophy to prove your worth before they pledge their aid for the cause. You also find yourself looking for dragon stones and amulets to give you control over the dragons of the land.

Combat is fairly repetitive stuff, and you find yourself getting by without much skill until the later islands where the introduction of armoured and shield carrying enemies mean that you need to learn to block and have a bit more strategy than simply hitting the nearest enemy. Bosses, giants and Champions need their health taken down a bit and then quick-time button presses come into play to finish them off.

The unique part of the game is the two huge battles on each island, one to open the other half and the other as the climax of events on the island. These battles can be triggered when you have met criteria, e.g. having enough troops, having dragon air support etc.

Once the battles are triggered it's a matter of storming the castle or fortification with your mass of troops, there is only one real objective for the player here, to kill off the enemy shaman who are responsible for spawning endless replacements for the enemies you kill. Once they are dead the legion's reinforcements are cut off and you must bring your shaman to the summoning stone, where they perform magic that banishes the legion from the area.

The battles are huge with an astonishing number of characters on screen. There are siege weapons and giants amongst the melee. Your dragons can be summoned once you have enough dragon runes. Killing a shaman gets you a dragon rune, there can be up to ten shamans to be killed in the later levels.

The dragons can be used to air-strike certain targets taking them out of the game, for example, archers or giants that are making it difficult, or the shaman's saving you the trouble of killing each one individually. Shamans are killed by destroying the four posts surrounding them, which breaks their magic shield, it's then a swift sword thrust to kill them off.

The first time you see the battle it is astonishing. There is true chaos and everything seems exhilarating. After 6 battles you know the drill and the effect wears off. Don't get me wrong the battles are still a spectacle, it's just that you know you are just going from place to place killing shaman. That is your only role, maybe a bit of variety of objectives in the battles might have kept it fresh.

The fortresses have two roles, to be the site of the final battles and also the site of stealth missions. You are tasked with obtaining a certain item from inside the fortress, and have to sneak inside. If you are seen then the alarm is raised and you will find yourself fighting against overwhelming force. To progress you must find a very deliberate route into and through the fortress killing using a stealth attack which is instigated when you are near an enemy that has it's back to you by pressing x, which silently kills in a satisfying manner.

The stealth missions are almost on a par with Splinter Cell and Metal Gear games here. Which is a bonus and it mixes up the game-play. The only thing I can say in criticism is that the stealth missions are necessary to complete the campaign. Those that bought a hack and Slash open world sandbox game might not have wanted to play a stealth action game It would have been nice to have been told that stealth would play a big role in the game before purchase. Might also have gained the game more sales from the stealth action fans.

There are the obligatory shops where you can upgrade your sword with combat runes and buy ranged weapons like axes and firebombs. You can also buy maps, which show the location of gold on your radar, this makes the collection of money for buying said items much easier. There are in addition to the gold barrels of mead dotted around which will be paid for by innkeepers.

Collecting rage orbs from the dead allows you to use the magic of fire  and ice for a limited period until the rage energy runs out. Giving your blade the ability to freeze or set on fire the legion.

There is also a ghostly warrior trainer who in return for gold will teach you newer and more devastating combat moves.

There are a large number of ruins and caves, which can be explored in a tomb raider style to find gold. Sometimes just getting from place to place due to the landscape can be a bit of a puzzle.

Finally ley lines can be used to fast travel across the island once the stones have been found by walking to the location.

The a.i. is average, they do stupid things like walk off ledges to get to you, and usually just approach you and stand in a circle around you waiting their chance to strike.

The boss fights are fairly simplistic with you basically hacking and dodging until their health is down and a quick-time sequence finishes them. The bosses like the champion are introduced slowly then used increasingly throughout the game. There are two real main boss characters, Drakan and Hel herself.

Drakan is fought twice and Hel is the end of game boss. I have to heavily criticise the Hel fight however, the difficulty spike here will kill you. From being a fairly easy game the final fight is a real problem. I spent about four hours trying to kill Hel and screamed at the screen and threw controllers around. I will go as far as to say that the final fight tarnishes the whole game.

You have to fight many enemies in tight confines while destroying Hel's shaman pillars before finally getting to her. It's not the actual fight with Hel, it's the sheer weight of numbers of advanced hard to kill enemies that force you from being average at the game the whole way through to become a master of it's combat.

One tip for anyone playing Viking after reading this review is to stock up on health potions and firebombs before attempting the fight. Be warned though, once used they don't re-spawn with you when you come back for another go. I know it's the end of game boss and it should be hard, however this really is a huge jump in difficulty.

The islands are very well designed. Beautiful locations and thoughtful real world places. The areas look drab and lifeless when controlled by the legion, once liberated the sun comes out and everything looks idyllic. The art direction is perfectly in sync with the Viking legends.

Graphically the frame rate is good for the most part with understandable drops in the huge battles. This isn't a criticism, the number of objects on screen is staggering, on a par with Kameo and Heavenly sword for huge battle melees.

I don’t know what game engine was used here but it should be used more often.

Sound is good with some good voice work, especially the perfectly cast Brian Blessed. Checkpoints come after each mission or item pickup, and are handled transparently by the game to good effect. There are a few checkpoint gaps near the end of the game which are a little unfair, however not a real problem. Menus are sparse but functional.

I played Viking for around 20 hours and received a very nice 960 points. Most of the achievement flow from completing the story and upgrading the character, which really is necessary anyway. No real achievement hunting points, apart from finding hidden skulls in the fortresses. Which is a little unfair, as you can't travel back to an island once you leave for the next.

No multi-player at all, and it isn't missed. I doubt it would work well.

I had a lot of fun with this game, it never got as much hype as some games. Leading to many dismissing it as a purchase or even a rent. Having played two games recently with Norse mythology I know which one was better and it isn't Too Human. I would urge everyone to play this game. One of the better releases of 2008.

Scoring

Graphics 9

Gameplay 9

Story 5

Level Design 9

A.i. 5

Total 7.4

Too Human Review

What if the stories from myth about viking Gods were all true? That there really were Gods that ruled over our ancestors? What if the theories about us reaching a technological level only to obliterate ourselves are true? That for many cycles humans have developed computers, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence etc and been destroyed by our own creations or nature.

Too Human suggest that Norse Gods were in fact representatives of an advanced technological civilization. An elite ruling class tasked with the protection of ordinary people. Baldur, Thor, Odin, simply people evolved beyond baseline human by staggeringly advanced technology.

Who do these gods protect the humans from, goblins and elves who are the a.i. that ran amok, however there are two factions, the norn are benevloent a.i. who control a cyber world woven into the fabric of being by nano tech viruses inside every living or non living atom. they know far more than they are telling us about everything we see.

These God's fight the goblins and trolls on one side and amongst themselves on the other, over the direction of policy. Loki believes one ideology and Odin another. The clash will shake the world.

Baldur is introduced to us as he is rescued from Hel. Why is was there? The next time we see him he is stalking the Grendel in a bar that is part viking with huge tankards and the other part holographic strip club.

We find out Baldur's history in bits a pieces from his shattered memory. We get the sense that Baldur is not being told the full story of events about his wife or his recent history. We know that his wife is dead and Freya wishes to comfort him and become his wife, however, Baldur is distant with her. Loki is imprisoned and Baldur takes his army of men to hunt down the Grendel, a new species of machine threat.

The scene is set for a story with many twists. The problem is in the execution. The makers of Too human have had this story in their heads for too long. they have a huge library of information I would wager on the back story. The problem is none of it shows in the game. Most of what I know I had to piece together from many sources. Some of the clever parallels drawn I have read about in forums for game, not gleaned from the game itself.

Some plot points regarding death for example are not explained. Maybe this is due to the final revelations that will come in later games, however leaving the player wondering if there is a huge plot hole is not the best policy.

For example Baldur does not die, nor it seems does any of the a.i. helpers. The valkyries come and carry them away and bring them back seconds later. Conversely we are also told that Hel claims the corpses of the fallen and that In taking Baldur from Hel once he died the Aesir broke a pact leading to war.

Death seems to be a state of being here, alive you are free in midgard, dead you go to valhalla or Hel. I am getting irritated thinking about it, if the final reveal at the end of the trilogy is that Midgard is a virtual world and the characters are living in a matrix style world that they didn't know about I won't be happy. The game already plays with Baldur's perceptions once with him thinking he has left cyberspace back to reality and finding that he never left cyberspace. To fully confuse me at one point, one of the Aseir Gods is killed for good and doesn't come back again or get a valkyrie, why? I never saw any explanation.

The story has some points to make about technology being a double edged sword with manipulation of media fed to a character making him act against character. Never quite seeing the real world and worlds within worlds seems to be a heavy plot element.

The story feels episodic, however, it does have an introduction middle and resolution. It's just that one crisis has been resolved, only to make wider matters worse and the future look bleak for the Aseir. A large war is now now being waged on two sides, which look like they might unite in their hatred.

Baldur is a cold and an unlikeable hero, his treatment of his wife feels wrong. Thor is a horrible mix, a cybernetic superbeing, who drinks like an alcholic and seems terminally stupid. All the aseir seem cold and aloof, and not a bunch of people that feel like they need your support, I might actually start rooting for Loki and the Goblins.

On starting a game you are presented with 5 classes to choose from, which I don't like, there I have said it. It's fine to upgrade your character all you like, but to have to choose before you even know the game, which attributes you will like best is just stupid. I am not going to play any game that takes 15 hours five times over to see all the variances, no matter how interesting they are.

I think I have played only a handful of games more than once through in my life, games like Doom, Half life 1 and 2 and Mass effect. I have to really, really like a game to give it that much time. To suggest to me before playing that I might want to take five classes through a fifteen hour game is a little much. I want one character that all abilities are open to. I chose bioengineer at random. After all the stats meant little too me with know experience. Five times fifteen is seventyfive hours. If you want the full levels in each class that is doubled to 150 hours play time. Later on in the game you are given the choice of staying human or having technological implants, again the implications of these choice isn't clear enough and they are unchangeable. 

The combat is fairly deep. As it should be being the main focus of the game. Using the right stick swings whatever weapon is equipped, swords, hammers, poles. The left and right triggers shoot pistols or fire grenades and bullets from rifles. If you are near an enemy and facing it you lock on, pushing the stick in the direction of the enemy strikes it or slides Baldur towards the enemy and strikes. Double tapping the stick will make Baldur deliver an uppercut which throws then enemy in the air where good timing with your guns will keep it in the air with the force of your firepower.

You can also lock onto various body parts of the larger enemies and shoot pieces off of them. Pointing both sticks in a direction at once sends a larger blast from your current weapon which is very useful.

Baldur has a Norn spider weapon on his back which performs special attacks depending on your class with a press of the Y button. The X button performs healing spells, at least on the bioengineer class. As you fight a combo meter fills and once full you can unleash an explosive type special attack called a finisher with the right button.

There are about seven types of enemy robot, all with their own attack patterns and combat strategies. They drop weapons and armour when they die and there are pillars dotted around which also unleash collectibles. Note must be made of the sheer amount of attackers, usually no less then seven at one attacking you for the most part of the game.

Some enemies explode or freeze or poison on contact, making their destruction a priority as they charge at you. The enemy simply run at you,  or stand still and shoot bombs until you get close. No prizes for a.i. here.

Cyberspace takes the form of a well, where once you enter you are transported to a small area of virtual real estate where actions taken impact on doors and machinery in the real world. The cyber environments are forests and rivers which clash with the bleak frost ravaged world of Midgard which seems to be in the grip of an ice age caused by the Aseir themselves.

When you die a valkyrie comes down from above and lifts you up and vanishes with you. You then respwan a little further back from where you died. The enemies are left with the damage you dealt them and you simply have to wear them down. Each time you are respawned your current armour becomes damaged and less effective leading to a quicker and quicker death unless you change the armour.

There are four main levels, and they are huge. each one takes a good hour or two to complete. Between each level you return to a city where story cut scenes are triggered and you can wander around and buy armour and weapons at the shops.

There is a huge variety of weapons and armour. Swords, poles, hammers, pistols, rifles. Armor consists of helmet, gloves, chest piece, trousers and boots. Each item can be given upgrades in the form of runes making it more effective. Weapon blueprints can be found in cyberspace and then manufactured at a cost in the real world. Weapons collected can be sold to make money for newer models. The combinations are huge and you spend a lot of time juggling your inventory. Which is fun, however the menu's are a little more confusing than needs to be at first. A steep learning curve. Though I am sure if you have played similar games before it will be a breeze. If you haven't be prepared to spend a long time weighing up armor points, weapon damage stats and buying and selling endless lists of weapons. A best possible button would have made a lot of micro management redundant. Still a lot of people like this kind of thing. I have to say I do too, though I feel a bit nerdier for admitting it.

There are many large robots which could be considered bosses, well they are earlier in the game and then repeated on the later levels a lot. There is a fight with another Aseir called Hode, also a huge dog which belongs to Hel and Hel herself is the final boss. Her fight is long and protracted, chasing her through her Fortress.

The boss battles are wars of attrition really, there is never any doubt you will win, it's just how effectively you can manage it.

The levels have a feeling of grandeur, which is carried by scale alone, there is little opulence with basically big halls and tunnels. The characters are an interesting cross between viking and cybernetic futuristic. It has to be said that some armors make Baldur look a little daft. There is no real design to the levels, they are simply just big long corridors punctuated with the odd area open to the sky. The first one is meant to be something to do with barges that take away the dead to Hel, referenced by the odd moving coffin. The last Hel's fortress with it's undead hordes. The other two levels have themes, ice forest and the ship of the world serpent. In the end though there is little spectacle or of memory. The city is the best looking area and it is rather small.

The engine seems fine, however, there are various clipping issues, especially the valkyrie and the floor never seem quite well matched. The frame rates seem pretty good for the most part with a large number of enemies and explosions going on. There is slowdown but it isn't really that noticeable.

Sound is average, with theatrical music and good sound effects. Checkpoints are very regular and death only ever seems to send you back a small distance. Menus are a little cluttered, but that is excusable by the amount of information they contain.

I received 535 achievement points. I'm happy with that for one play-through. Again to get all the points they seem to be asking far too much of your time for one game.

Multiplayer is fun, I have worked through a few levels with strangers online. You never really get much of a sense of teamwork however, you tend to get attacked by a circle of enemies each and only come together when attacking the larger robots. I never take off any points or give them for multiplayer in my review scores. I do comment on multiplayer when I play it, however only a few games get much play from me online. Those I have to say tend to be the ones my friends play. I don't have anyone on my friends list playing this game and to be honest I don't really fancy hours on end with strangers one on one in this game. Same goes for Fable II to be honest, which is a shame that all my friends want to play is shooters like Bad Company, Rainbow Six and Call of Duty. I think it could be fun if you had a good rapport with someone who was enthusiastic to play Too Human.

The biggest problem i have with the game is the wisdom of leaving out weapons and abilities that need a game to be played through two times to unlock. If I walk into a restaurant I don't expect to be given a meal that is only three quarters compete only to be awarded the full meal on the second or third visit.

If you only buy one game every month then yes there is replay value here. You can happily run through the game ten times with the five classes and upgrade them all to the maximum. I am sure if you really liked this game then you could do that happily.

The problem I have is one of time. I am not rich, nor am I poor. I buy on average a game each week. I play some games for longer than others and I have a backlog of games sitting on my shelf that I have bought and never got around to playing yet. So with Too human completed I have Mercenaries 2, The Force Unleashed and some older games still sitting to waiting to play. I don't have the time, nor unfortunately the inclination to play Too Human over and over looking for the best from it. If I can't see it at it's best first time then I am sorry I am going to miss out on the best.

Scoring

Graphics 7

Gameplay 7

Story 7

Level Design 5

A.i. 5

Total 6.2

Tomb Raider: Legend Review

It's Tomb Raider one remade using the 10 year advance in hardware and engine technology. Is it any good? Will this game stand up to the test of time and can they make a better game with ten years practice?

Most people who play this will have some knowledge of the original or will have played other Tomb Raider games. Therefore they may have played the original and already know the story and levels presented here. Will a remake do a genre justice that tends to have little re-playabilty, once you have worked out the puzzles, it's never the same again replaying a Tomb Raider game. The magic is lost, and it becomes an exercise in memory and repetition. The fun is in scratching you head working out what to do and where to jump to.

Lara Croft is approached by a man called Larson on the behalf of a woman named Natla, who happens to own Natla industries, a very large multinational. Lara is asked to look for the scion of Atlantis, at first Lara is skeptical as there are no leads to it's location. Natla provides her with one and she cannot resist going after the fabled artifact. Lara finds herself deep in Qualopec's tomb searching for the scion. After much work she finds it only to have Larson who has followed her try and kill her to claim the scion from her. Lara escapes leaving Larson unconscious and goes back to Natla for answers. Finding Natla missing from her offices she goes after the second of three parts of the scion, which Natla has leads on. The story progresses to some dangerous reveals about the nature of Atlantis and Natla, who isn't what she seems. Leading to Lara desperately fighting to save the world from subjugation from a horde of genetically engineered monsters controlled by an evil godlike power.

The story is told through cut scenes at the beginning and end of each level, there is little dialogue and interaction in the actual levels, Tomb raider for the most part is a solitary game, Lara spends many a lonely hour with only the tombs and some wild animals for company.

There has been an attempt to inject some emotion into the story, which is mostly the same as the first game except for a little streamlining. Lara's guilt at taking a life and her subsequent doubts and temptations about her descent into darkness are new to the story. Looking at the blood on her hands you almost feel sorry for what Lara has been forced to become in her quest. At first a desire to complete her fathers work, and ends up with her becoming a monster to fight another much more dangerous creature.

How would I define a Tomb raider game? Well you have large enclosed rooms with platforms, somewhere in the room is an objective and you have to manipulate objects and work out a path to reach the objective before moving on to the next.

Lara has a few abilities, she can shoot at things using a variety of weapons, shotgun, pistols, machine gun. She can also use a grappling hook to swing from, wall run and pull objects with. She can also  climb on vertical columns, swim underwater, move crates and balls around, and finally perch on top of thin columns.

The environment is the puzzle for the most part, it is also hostile, falling too far, spikes from walls and floor, collapsing rope bridges, moving platforms and poles, huge indiana jones style rolling balls, flaming platforms and steam jets. crushing walls and ceilings, huge scythe like whirling blades. collapsing platforms.

Some platforms, poles and grapple hooks, lower or recede into the wall when you reach them  or run out of time making timing important. If you take too long you fall to your death or have to reset and try again.

Puzzles take the form of finding keys, missing cogs from machinery to repair a dam, shooting certain jewels in fresco's to open doors, moving water levels up and down to reach certain areas. On several occasions you are asked to insert three or four artifacts into an object to open access to the next area. There are a few places where there are little mini-game puzzles, involving rotating scarabs, turning pillars so that symbols match. These have a logic, or a handy guide located on the hieroglyphs nearby. Though there was one of them that I half got the idea of and managed to do only by trial and error.

In one room there is a good puzzle where you have to bring down pillars so that light reflections make a pyramid shape that shines on a lock and opens the door. For variety at one point you have control of a crane which you must use to make jumps possible and also to smash down a piece of the scenery to progress.  Another neat puzzle is one where a dopple ganger of Lara mirrors your actions in a symmetrical room. the problem is if you flip the switch to open the door she also flips the one that closes it. You have to use the environment to your advantage to take her out of the equation.

The puzzling in the game is balanced and logical for the most part, however maddeningly at time the developers use some dirty tricks. There are a few well hidden switches that really should be more obvious. I can see the developers quandary when it comes to making certain puzzles, some explanation should be given when the player is really struggling, a hint system that could be turned on or off even.

There is one particular puzzle that I am thinking about. You have a handhold and a path that is clearly visible as the right way to go, but you can't jump up to it as it's only a finger stretch out of Lara's reach. I spent ages trying to work out what to do. I eventually caved in an watched a you tube video walkthrough, where I learned that you have to swing on the grapple hook that swings you to that area twice or thrice increasing momentum which makes the jump achievable. There are other sections like this, in one area you cant seem to get into a room, it's easy you shoot out the glass window and you can easily get in, the only thing is there is no reason for you to suspect you can shoot out the glass, it's near the end of the game and the first time that glass has been seen, as there is a shortage of glass windows in most of the Tombs. It is just a new concept, and as such hard to make the logic leap to. The game needs a system, once a player has been wandering around aimlessly in an area for say half an hour that the game just displays a hint of what to do. Surely play testers give this sort of advice to the developers and they can add this to the areas where it's most needed.

Solutions just aren't always as  obvious as they should be, which is a problem with Tomb Raider as a game in general. You are presented with large rooms, with lots of interactive scenery, and most of the time the objective is unclear. To be fair the game does sometimes shows you a hint by showing you a view of where to go, but not always. You are simply presented with the ability to explore the area trying everything you can think of until you realize the objective and then work out how to get to it and achieve it. There were a few times during my playthrough of the game that I felt disenheartened by completing a huge area, moving on to the next and finding yet another huge challenege. I didn't feel this way with Tomb Raider Legend.

It seems to be a problem with my familiarity with the game. Having played and really enjoyed the original on Playstation one and PC, completing it on both. I was familiar with the story and my memory was jogged by most of the levels, which are certainly not exactly the same as the first game, but the settings are. At times I found myself wishing the game was a bit shorter. That might sound silly, by the time I finsished this game the savegame clock said that I had spent very nearly twenty hours with Lara. That is almost the same as My first playthrough of Mass Effect. It felt like twenty hours though, playing Mass effect I was ready for another twenty. Gta IV I spent forty hours on and lost track of time. I am not sure why I felt like this, maybe I shouldn't complain about a game being good value for money and a challenge. I just got weary with this one, maybe it was a case of deja vu that caused this, that is what I am going to pin it down to. If you haven't played the original take it as a glowing recommendation, that this game will take you nearly twenty hours to complete and is excellent value for money. Especially if you take the option of buying this as downloadable content for Tomb Raider Legend, which makes it much cheaper.

The enemies are there to add some variety and a use for your guns apart from the boss fights. They include bats, bears, wolves, raptors, rats, gorillas, crocodiles, cougars, mummy cat humans things and big mummified birds that shoot fire. The objects you have to find are keys to doors in all but name, though some are interesting, at one point you have to find lead bars and turn them into gold using a statue of Midas whose hand had the ability to turn anything to solid gold, including Lara if she is silly enough to land on it. 

A big questions that has always baffled me is why are these previously unexplored for thousands of year old tombs littered with guns, ammo and health. Surely it's time to let go of the old health bar and have Lara's health rebuild over time as long as no further damage is incurred. Also her pistol weapons have infinite ammo which is unrealistic, so why not have the other guns the same. I am aware that I want to swap one unrealistic feature for another here, but everyone I have ever spoken to about Tomb raider has mentioned the question of who leaves the ammo lying about, if there was a skeleton or decomposing corpse of a failed adventurer lying beside the ammo that would also be a good way of explaining the issue.

Thrown in for added value are quicktime events in the cut scenes. Something I never really like, especially when they get as complicated as guitar Hero on expert to complete, Spiderman III i am looking at you here.

There are also collectibles scattered in areas off the beaten path, which unlock concept art, outfits for Lara and also achievements.

At it's heart Tomb raider is a platform game, and it does it well, jumping around as Lara is a great experience, she is agile and strong, with her gymnastics. For anyone who loves the 3D platform genre, it's a must play. Be aware though, that there are some times when you scream at Lara and feel nothing but glee as she plummets to her doom and breaks every bone in her body in a sickeningly convincing thud. Her controls are excellent, just sometimes a little finicky as to which direction she will jump when swinging or hanging from things. The camera can be a pain in smaller area, especially when fighting monsters, one area near the end has targets you shoot which start time clock mechanisms, each time you shoot one for the first time two monsters are spawned, trying to get the lock on to choose the monsters and not the targets can be very hard when you are on a small ledge avoiding fire bolts.

The a.i. is very simple, the monsters basically run at you and attack, the shooting monsters shoot if you are at a certain distance otherwise they attack physically if you are close enough. At one point I saw two wolves running on the spot facing a wall, and shot them down, while they continued in the same locked animation. To be fair a.i. isn't a problem, this is a puzzle for your intelligence, not artificial.

There are four boss fights, all of them challenging, the first two especially. Dinosaurs, mythical beasts, all with good animation and a different strategy for beating them. The boss fights however are good examples of the lack on intuitiveness that the game displays.  The first two bosses both require certain actions that aren't made very clear, both require a lot of practice to get past on the hard difficulty setting. Expect to look up a FAQ for these bosses, which I feel is a failing, as you should be given enough of a clue to get through without needing a guide.

The bosses all require use of the enraging system. This means that as you shoot a creature it becomes enraged, as shown by a bar that goes up when you are locked onto it. Once the bar is full a sparkle comes from the creatures head and it will charge you, at one point in it's charge a button press shows on the screen, hit it right and the game goes into bullet time and two targets converge on the creatures head. Hit the fire button at the correct time and the monster will be killed outright or suffer massive damage. When two or more baddies are attacking this can be confusing a glitchy.

Level design has always been a triumph of Tomb Raider. Each area is a lovingly crafted puzzle box designed to look like an ancient tomb, Roman, greek, egyptian, peruvian, and the mythological Atlantean architecture are well designed. Mostly workmanlike, but occasionally breathtakingly beautiful. There are fourteen huge levels to work your way through.

Graphics aren't actually bad, though they don't push any technical envelopes at all. workmanlike and dependable, frame rate can vary when the amount of details changes when panning the camera, but it's never a noticeable slowdown problem when playing properly. The character models when seen in the in game engine cut scenes show their lack of polygons, Natla especially.

Sound is there, yes, some dramatic music when beasties leap out at you, some tinkly relaxing music at other times, which is needed as you scream and throw the controller when Lara misses a ledge you were sure you were going to be able to reach.

Checkpoints are employed well. There is an ability to save, but it only saves at the last checkpoint, not at any point in the game.

There were no places where checkpoints were too widely spaced. Someone has made a study of seeing where in the game you would get killed and has placed a checkpoint before each one, this must be applauded as there are a whole lot of frustrating jumps, and knowing that you will be placed only a few paces back after trying something stupid that might or might not pay off encourages you to experiment.

The front end is satisfactory, some clear, plainly written menus and some nice extras including artwork etc. All unlocked during in game exploits.

There were a few glitches that I noticed, at one point the game froze and when i switched off and rebooted the save game insisted I was about an hour further back that I was, the only option was to repeat about an hours work. Which probably took half the time when you know what you are doing.

There was one area where a box that was moveable sank into the floor leaving only the top of it showing, I could still drag it around the room, sunk deep into the concrete floor.

There were a few jumps which seemed to only work when the game was feeling in an especially good mood, one in particular which I did about ten times in an area i couldn't work out, and would only let Lara catch the ledge on one out of ten tries. maybe I was going the wrong way, but I knew it worked, and was the only way I could see back up out of the pit. There are also a few areas where Lara sunk into the floor to her knees.

I received 185 achievement points for completing the game on hard. The achievements I didn't get are for completing the levels and finding all artifacts, and without dying, also under a certain time. To get them all would require several passes through the game, as some of the artifacts are very well hidden and death is only a mistimed jump away. Rock hard achievements then, in a game I was wishing over after about halfway, looks like I will have to settle for my 185 points.

There is no multiplayer, and it's not needed. Co-op might be an idea for these types of game. Might be fun to have a friend work out the puzzles with you.

Scoring

Graphics 7

Gameplay 7

Story 8

Level Design 8

A.i. 5

Total Score 7.0

The Club Review

The premise behind the club is simple. An organization employs or blackmails 8 individuals with superior firearms and athletic ability to perform in an extreme murder sports league. The heroes are tasked with various goals in a series of filmed gunfight events for the entertainment of the ultra rich.

That's it, no real plot, just the tournament. It's really rather akin to a racing game, in that you have events and you are looking for the best score.

There are several introductions to the characters and the owner of the club. Also once the game is completed on tournament mode with each character you get another cut scene for each one showing more of their brief story.

The game is viewed from a third person perspective, there is no cover system. Though you can duck behind objects by pressing the left stick. You can zoom in for more precise aiming. Your character can vault over low objects and break through some barriers. Pressing Y turns your character 180 degrees which can be quite handy when fire comes from behind.

You can melee attack and throw grenades. The game is very much run and gun, with several of the events against the clock there is little time to stand still.

There are several ways of playing, however the intended first choice is tournament where you play through the game in a set way.

There are 8 locations, a steelworks, Venice, a prison, an ocean liner, a warehouse, a manor house, a bunker and a war-zone. In each of these locations there is a selection of eight events. There are 5 types of event siege, sprint, survivor, time attack and run the gauntlet.

Siege

This game-type sees you hemmed into a small area by markers, if you stray outside the markers for more than five seconds you explode thanks to explosives implanted in you. You basically have to shoot as many of the hordes of attackers as you can and survive for the length of time specified.

Sprint

You have to go from point A to point B as quickly and as efficiently as you can, you are given marks on time taken, amount of bullets used, head-shots etc.

Survivor

Much like Siege only with a larger area.

Time Attack

This game-type has an area marked off like a track and you have to complete a set number of laps without dying or running out of time. Time can be gained by shooting enemies or little signs placed around the level.

Run the Gauntlet

Very like sprint except this one is against the clock as well.

So, basically, instead of the usual eight levels strung together and the player working their way through them. You have 5 event types in each area. Some events reuse parts of the location, others don't, think of the locations like small sandbox levels with each event fencing off or laying down chalk marks to denote the area for each event.

Personally I found the sprint levels to be the best for my playing style. I tend to spray and pray a little and the basic getting from one end of the level to the other felt right. The survivor and siege sections were averagely tolerable.

The time attack and run the gauntlet spoiled the game for me. Running out of time was a real pain. Yes there is a lot of skill involved and perversely taking your time on the time attack and shooting each and every enemy and time sign works best. It's just that on the hard difficulty the time limits are very very tight.

The actual difficulty of the game isn't that hard. I know I could have breezed it, however I was forced to go to the normal and ultimately the easy setting for the last location time attack. 

The problem is compounded by the fact that you get five goes at each event before being sent back to the start of the tournament. For example you have to complete 7 events to find that the last event in the tournament for a location is time attack. You then fail that time attack five times and are dumped at the menu. Where to get back to the time attack you have to do seven events that you have already completed again. I hated time attack, really really hated it to the point i considered stopping playing this game.

Playing with different characters is slightly different, with some being slow damage sponges and others faster. There is little to distinguish all 8 of them however other than their looks. Like the difference between fine wines some people it will just be lost on, and I was one of them.

There are various collectibles like health and ammo, also the signs to shoot for time a score.

I can't help but wonder if this game would have grabbed me better if it had been presented in the normal fashion. Having a story with all eight levels strung together is a semblance of plot.

I understand the idea here. Bizarre creations have taken the menu system from Project Gotham racing and implemented it into a shooter. Bringing  the Kudos system with it for luck.

You are playing for score, to see your name on the leader board. I imagine people playing these events over and over again so they can run faster than seems possible through the levels killing each enemy with a single headshot and hitting each hidden sign. Ranking up huge scores and sitting at number one on the leader board to the envy of their friends. Just like a racer, practice makes perfect.

It's innovative, even if the game itself isn't, I have to give them that. I don't like it though. Against the clock gaming now goes down in my pet hates list.

I managed to complete the tournament technically finishing the game, but this is a game you can never really finish until you have the highest score.

The a.i. is satisfactory, it takes cover and runs at you. Nothing innovative there. There are no boss fights at all. The levels are video game cliches from every other shooter out there and there is only really corridor level design shown. 

Graphics are average, good frame rate, though nothing that taxing anyway. Sound, what can I say, it has some. There are no checkpoints or save system as they aren't needed due to the short event style structure. Menus are instantly familiar to players of PGR, everything seems clear enough.

I played the game for roughly six hours, around three of those were too long. I only got 360 achievement points, I felt cheated I should have got the whole 1000 for the amount of frustration that time attack caused me.

The multiplayer I gave a try and it seemed to be still populated, and not actually that bad in an old school way. No ranks or xp points to nerd over here.

I actually wanted to snap the game disc a few times, not a good thing really. Though what that says about me is about as much as it says about the game. I hated it, it pushed my buttons in all the wrong ways. What I think is so stinging is that the sprint events were really good fun. I liked them a lot. The game could have been good, as it is for me it's something I wish I had never bought.

This must be tempered though as for the person that enjoys playing a game with style and grace it might just be a perfect fit and deserve a higher score. The score it gets here would be upgrades to the 6.0 area if there were no time attack events. Even so the content here is slim pickings and experienced shooter experts can expect less than the six hours I spent with the game.

In short flawed and too short, a real missed opportunity.

Scoring

Graphics 7

Gameplay 5

Story 0

Level Design 5

A.i. 5

Total 4.4