And who said game titles aren’t getting longer!

I picked this up as a cheapy a few weeks ago (it can be had for about a tenner) and completed it last night. OK first things first, it’s a flawed game. The graphics are sub-par especially the textures which are woeful in places. The plot is utter 3rd rate, high fantasy tosh. It’s heavily cut down as a RPG with little customisation, choice or real depth, and it’s got quite a few glitches and bugs.

But… despite all of that I really rather enjoyed it! It starts off pretty badly, in fact I only continued to play in order to see how bad it could be and laugh at it. But soon I was sucked in, the game definitely improves by about Chapter 4 when the settings and enemies start to get interesting

In a way I enjoyed the fact it didn’t have all the depth of a real RPG or thousands of side quests like say Oblivion (which would be the closest game to compare it to, given the fantasy setting and first person view). The lack of options and choices basically meant I got on with playing the game, rather than the hours of buggering about that I normally do. The game also rewards exploration, something I like in my games; so if you go clambering up to the top of that hard to reach, ruined pillar there is generally something there to reward your efforts & curiosity (other good games in this regard are Tomb Raider and Half Life 2)

Anyhow, if you are after a light weight, action-RPG with a bit of hack and slash & dungeon crawling and general daring do - I’d say you can’t go far wrong with DMMM:E (as it’s know to it’s friends!)

The weekly Weight Watchers meeting could get a litte fraught once the biscuits arrived

Just completed this on the PS3

Wow so that’s 2 games in 3 days! Well I’d been playing this on and off for a while. What can I say? It adds very little to the series, it’s a cut ‘n paste job of DMC 1, 2 or 3. Now I guess Capcom reckon if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. But by the time you get to a forth game in a series you expect some innovation.

Well it’s very pretty, very, very pretty in fact; but all this eye candy comes at a price - interactability (I don’t even think that’s a word - but you get my drift). In gameplay terms 95% of the environents are basically box rooms and corridors, they don’t look like box rooms and corridors, they look like ultra detailed, epic pieces of gothic architecture, but you just glide through them, there is nothing to do in these places. The locations merely serve as a sumptuous backdrop to yet another demon slicing fest. OK maybe I’m being unfair, Devil May Cry doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a beat ‘em up with completely OOT sword and gunplay, and in those regards it’s fine. Special mention has to go to the cut scenes; these were gorgeous, well choreographed and even more OOT than the game, which is going some. Extra special mention for the cheap shot Capcom pulled making you fight through the same levels twice (once as Nero, once as Dante) you even get to fight all the bosses twice too, yay! actually some of the bosses you fight three times! Come on Capcom that’s really lame!

Still not a bad game. And defintily one to show off to your mates if you are looking for a true HD game that doesn’t just look like a PS2 game with extra varnish.

Yay, it’s done.

Well it’s had it’s ups and downs - but overall it was an absolute top class game. Warning mild spoilers follow

It did start to grind a little at the end. The Sorrow was spooky and different but frustratingly obscure to defeat. The Volgin / Shagohod fight was a proving to be a bitch, then it just clicked and I did it with barely a scratch. I also found the fight against ‘The Boss’ fight a bit disappointing - the setting and overall cinematic were gorgeous, but the actual fight was a bit ‘flat’. Unusual for a MGS game - I actually followed the plot, for once Kojima didn’t go too bonkers with triple bluffs and twisting conspiracies within conspiracies, it actually made sense!

I won’t go into a lot of detail on opinions, it’s a 3.5 year old game after all, so it’s all been said before. But I will say one thing, after all my initial impressions and bile - I was wrong. This is a text book example of when persevering with a game can be worth it. I also urge anyone thinking about playing this game, to pick up the Subsistence version - if only for the improved camera, I can’t imagine how painful & frustrating it would be with the original top-down camera

Here’s looking forward to number 4. But I’m going to take a break and play a few things in-between before starting that. I think a double dose of Snake might be overkill.

No this isn’t some new extra sepcial limited edition version of MGS 3, just my final attempt to play & get into this game.

I’ve attempted to play this game twice before (once with the normal version, and once with the Subsistence special edition) and both times hated it; absolutely despised it. And was rather ranty and vocal about it on my blog. So for some totally mental reason I decided to try a final time - this time playing on Very Easy and determined to make some progress. Well finally it’s clicked, I’ve got past the really annoying ruined factory section at the beginning and started to get drawn into the game. It was obvious that Very Easy mode did what it said on the tin and was very, very easy - far too easy. So I started again (yeah the into was getting pretty dull by this point) but on Normal difficulty.

All my initial reservations are still there, the controls are really archaic, the gameplay is at times clumsy and the initial starting mission has a vertical difficulty curve for what should be a gentle intro to the game.

But I’m loving the mad as a hatstand plot, the attention to detail and minutia such as all the animals you can hunt, kill & eat or using a cigar to remove leeches. It’s certainly a game that brings out the OCD in the player. But it’s not without humour (despite what I said before) If I’m totally honest I kinda want to get this out of the way so I can play Metal Gear Solid 4 but for now it’s got me hooked. Goes to show - don’t judge a game by it’s terrible first section and hour of play.

So the old Xbox 360 has been packed up and sent off for repair.

I have to hand it to Microsoft the process is slick and painless, it can be all done online, no need to ring up a call centre or anything. So now it’s just a matter of waiting.

So l’ve taken this opportunity to treat myself to a new shiny Xbox 360 Elite. Is it much different? Umm no, not really. It’s noticeably quieter, probably about half as noisy as the original 360 esp when the DVD drive is spinning, but it’s still louder than the PS3. The 120Gb HDD is nice, but will really come into it’s own when the next dashboard update comes out, as this is supposed to have a new feature which lets you copy games from the DVD discs to the HDD for faster (and quieter!) loading times. Needless to say, this will use up a lot of disc space. The HDMI output, well I can’t tell any difference from the component lead I was using before, but at least it fills a gap in my TV’s 2 HDMI connectors and is less bulk.

The greatest pain I had, was copying off all the data I wanted from my old 20Gb HDD to the new one. I’m too impatient to send off and wait for the free data transfer kit all Elite owners are entitled too. So I opted for some manual copying via a 360 memory card unit. So problems I ran into:

• My profile was on my HDD which meant every time I swapped the HDD over, I had to go through the “recover your Gamertag” process, which took forever. Solution; move your profile to the memory card
• Some content such as certain game saves (Rock Band being one) can not be copied from one device to another. Bugger I thought and lots of swearing ensued. But if you select the option to move the save file rather than copy, it works. Massive sigh of relief when I found that out
• License transfer - MS embed some freaky DRM into all the content you download such as Live Arcade games. This means they are locked to a particular machine. You are entitled to download them again for no cost, but they will only play on your new machine if it’s on-line and connected to Live. Solution: License Transfer Tool

All in all I’m pretty happy with the new machine, at least now I can get back to Rock Band

Everyone loves lists right? I blame all those shows on Channel 4 running through the Top 100 Sock Colours or whatever, that you end up watching coz there is sod all else on.

Well there is a little thread going on rllmuk, asking for people’s top 100 games, I normally scorn “list threads” as something the kids on gamefaqs post about, but I thought hey what the hell, so here goes… I think in the end I ended up a bit retro heavy, but I am an old git these days so I guess that figures.

Top 10
Resident Evil 4 (Wii)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
Okami (PS2)
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS2)
Bioshock (Xbox 360)
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (SNES)
Doom & Doom II (PC)
Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)
Half Life 2 (Xbox 360)
Shenmue (Dreamcast)

Top 20
R-Type (Arcade)
Devil May Cry (PS2)
Luigi’s Mansion (Gamecube)
Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
Unreal Tournament (PC)
Dungeon Master (Amiga)
Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
Tomb Raider (Playstation)
Ico (PS2)
Metroid Prime (Gamecube)

The Rest (In alphabetical order)
1942 (Arcade)
Advance Wars (Gameboy Advance)
Angband (PC)
Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance (PS2)
Black Crypt (Amiga)
Bomberman (Multi)
Cannon Fodder (Amiga)
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (Megadrive)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (Gameboy Advance)
Chaos (Spectrum)
Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES)
Crash Bandicoot (Playstation)
Donkey Kong Country (SNES)
Duke Nukem (PC)
Dune II (Amiga)
EDF 2017 (Xbox 360)
Eternal Darkness (Gamecube)
Fable (Xbox)
Gauntlet (Arcade)
Gargoyle’s Quest (Gameboy)
Green Beret (Spectrum)
Guitar Hero II (Xbox 360)
Gynoug (Megadrive)
Half Life (PC)
Half Life 2 Ep 2 (Xbox 360)
Hired Guns (Amiga)
Jet Set Radio (Dreamcast)
Jet Set Willy (Spectrum)
Llamatron (Amiga)
Magic Carpet (Playstation)
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Dreamcast)
Maximo: Ghosts to Glory (PS2)
Metal Gear Solid (Playstation)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PS2)
Metal Slug (Arcade)
Metroid Prime: Corruption (Wii)
New Zeland Story (Arcade)
Oblivion (Xbox 360)
Paperboy (Arcade)
Perfect Dark (N64)
Phantasy Star Online (Dreamcast)
Pikmin (Gamecube)
Populous II (Amiga)
Power Stone 2 (Dreamcast)
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Xbox)
Psychonauts (Xbox)
Quake (PC)
Resident Evil (Playstation)
Resident Evil 2 (Playstation)
Resident Evil: Code Veronica (Dreamcast)
Revenge of Shinobi (Megadrive)
Rez (Dreamcast)
Rock Band (Xbox 360)
Shinobi (Arcade)
Sonic Adventure 2 (Dreamcast)
Sonic The Hedgehog (Megadrive)
Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Megadrive)
Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Dreamcast)
Street Fighter II CE (Multi)
Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts (SNES)
Super Mario 64 (N64)
Super Mario Bros (NES)
Super Mario Kart (SNES)
Super Mario World (SNES)
Super Metroid (SNES)
Super Monkey Ball (Gamecube)
Syndicate (Amiga)
Tekken 2 (Playstation)
Tetris (Gameboy)
The Chaos Engine (Amiga)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past (SNES)
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (Gameboy Advance)
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Gamecube)
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
Tomb Raider II (Playstation)
Tomb Raider: Anniversary (Xbox 360)
Uncharted - Drake’s Fortune (PS3)
Wipeout (Playstation)
Wipeout 2097 (Playstation)
Worms (Amiga)

For some time now I’ve felt excluded from the rest of the gaming community, somehow I just wasn’t part of the club. The internet was filled with discussions and forums that I could not participate in. I was on the outside.

Why? Because my XBox 360 worked fine. Yesterday finally I could be like the rest of the cool kids and own a broken XBox 360, yup my 360 has finally got the dreaded RROD (Red Ring of Death). For those of you that don’t know the 360 was made on the cheap by Microsoft out of bits of old Russian submarines and chips salvaged from Sinclair ZX81s which means they are notorious for breaking down. When they do you get 3 red lights on the front of the console, this Wikipedia article does a better job of explaining it all than I can.

Microsoft got a right royal pounding in the press and on all fronts on this matter and in response have extended the warrenty on any 360 to 3 years, which covers even launch models.

So do I get it fixed? do I upgrade? Well both probably. The newer 360s have HDMI output, much quieter DVD drives and 120Gb HDD so all of that is pretty tempting. That means I’ll probably pick up an Elite, transfer over my stuff and then send the busted one off for repair then flog it.

But what a pain, and I was only switching the 360 on to cancel my Live Gold subscription!