Advent Calendar - December 13th.

XIII (PC)

I've tried not to make obvious picks where possible... but, fair enough, I've failed this time. No matter... XIII is a game I almost played once, so I've quite fancied giving it another go sometime, and this is the ideal opportunity.

How did I almost play it, you might wonder? Well, I had it when I lived in America. I can't remember if I rented it or bought it, but I got about five minutes in only to find the disc was scratched, and I couldn't get any further. Don't you hate it when that happens?

Thankfully, nowadays you can pick up most old games for a couple of quid, so here we go again...


Oh, that's a bit of a shame...

XIII is based on an Eighties comic book, which I haven't read... probably because it's Belgian. The only Belgian thing I usually have anything to do with is chocolate. Mmmmm... chocolate... what? Oh, the game. Yeah.

Well, it's a first-person shooter. Oh joy. It's a conspiracy-laden affair which finds you waking up, injured and with no memory, in the wake of the assassination of the American President. In true Jason Bourne style, you must set about finding what was your part in proceedings, if any, and get to the bottom of the devious goings-on.


Up a bit... left a bit...

Well, I say true Jason Bourne style... that's not entirely true. Jason Bourne is a bit on the hard side, with some awesome fighting and martial arts abilities. You, as XIII, are voiced by dull sex addict Hollywood legend David Duchovny. You have an arsenal of weaponry at your disposal... all of which is a bit shit.

It's a funny beast, XIII. It's one of the most stylish FPS games you'll find... astonishing in its time, it still stands out today. It's not just the cel-shaded graphics (and it was one of the first games to employ that style)... it's the way it stays true to its origins with comic-book panels and cutouts... especially effective when it shows the viewpoint of the person you've just shot, so you get your view and his view on the same screen.


It's a long way down. So let's look at it twice!

But on the other hand, the action is generic and, dare I say it... dull. It's all very well having the looks, but if there's nothing going on under there, people get bored pretty quickly. XIII isn't awful by any means, but when the gameplay is so by-the-numbers it's pretty difficult to play through to the end, no matter what the graphics or storyline are like.

Advent Calendar - December 10th.

America's 10 Most Wanted (Playstation 2)

I had this one almost written. The weather has played a bit of havoc with my calendar, with parcels that should have arrived ages ago still not being here. There's been some re-juggling, some re-playing and some re-writing, with new games being chosen, mainly as safety backups, but sometimes as replacements. The game for December 10th was going to be 10th Frame, a ten-pin bowling game by Epyx on the Commodore 64. I'd looked forward to playing that for quite some time, but I couldn't help thinking it seemed a bit of an obvious choice.

But then, on my first random shopping trip for three weeks, I spotted America's 10 Most Wanted.


Look, put that thing away. You'll have someone's eye out.

Before I say anything else, I will just mention that on the game's own website it states, quite boldly and proudly, that "In game music is provided by members of So Solid Crew who will also make guest appearances in the game.". Can you tell which direction this article's heading in?

America's 10 Most Wanted (Fugitive Hunter: War on Terror in the US) is (mostly - more on that later) a first person shooter. Now, if you know me through this blog, you're probably aware that the FPS is not my favourite type of game, but a good one will catch and hold my attention. This one... shall we say, it's not a good one.

The game starts in 1999, with you being sent into Afghanistan on a mission to fuck with Osama Bin Laden's shit. Your helicopter is shot down by a terrorist, the bastard, and you're the only one to survive, so you have to fight your way to an area where another helicopter can pick you up. This won't be easy though, because Afghanistan, in case you hadn't heard, is crawling with bad guys, and they'll stop at nothing to make sure you don't get away!


"You go first." "No, you go first."

Fortunately they're a pretty careless bunch, and they dish out weapons, armour and health like sweets. Most accommodating. It's very difficult to fail to make it to the end of the level, unless you blow yourself up. The game has a lock-on system so you really can't miss an enemy, and you'll absolutely never, ever run out of ammunition, what with all those terrorist guns lying around waiting to be picked up. And occasionally you'll find a US flag... picking this up grants you a temporary period of invincibility. Fuck, yeah!

In the first level, once you get to the end, you'll see Osama Bin Laden! Yep, he's there, waving a gun in the air and shouting abuse. And then, rather than stand there and accept justice, he runs off into a cave, leaving one of his henchmen to stand in your way. And that's when the game gets really bizarre, and is why I said this is mostly a FPS. It turns into a fighting game.


That's why we haven't wrapped this up yet. Our Boys aren't using Super Combos.

You probably don't believe me, because that doesn't make any sense. But it's true... having shot to death all his comrades, you resort to the spirit of fair play and mixed martial arts, and square off against each end level boss in a Virtua Fighter-type brawl, complete with energy bars at the top of the screen. Actually, that's unfair... to mention Virtua Fighter is to imply there's a level of quality here. There isn't... your moves are; left punch, right punch, kick, block. Mash the buttons and run away occasionally, and you'll win, at which point you have ten seconds to hit the X button fast enough to subdue and capture the guy. It really is that mental.


Is that... a ninja? Oh well, no matter... DIIIIIIEEEE!!!

If you beat the guy at the end of the first level, you... run to the waiting helicopter. No matter that Bin Laden was there just two minutes ago and can't have got far... you're off. So because this is 1999, the World Trade Center attacks are YOUR FAULT. If only you'd gone after him when you had the chance...

Because you let him escape, you have to capture America's 10 Most Wanted fugitives before you're allowed to go after him again... I'm sure some of them are made up, but the one before Bin Laden is Saddam Hussein... I know he was a real guy. Anyway, you start off in Miami. Actually, no you don't, you start off in a shit-looking generic city. Your first couple of fugitives are holed up there, and from then there's no stopping you, baby! You'll take in such terrorist hotbeds as Paris, the Caribbean and, umm... Utah.


You have to take this guy down. You don't know what he's hiding in his cardboard pants.

As if the whole premise wasn't offensive enough, you actually get points for kills, and bonuses for headshots, “Splats” (close-up shots or messy grenade/rocket deaths), and so on. So they've turned global terrorism into a high score battle. There was one moment where a guy said he'd give me the key to the warehouse where a fugitive was hiding, if I paid him instead of shooting him. My guy just said, “Here's some cash. Now get outta here”, at which point the cutscene ended. But instead of getting outta there, the bloke just stood, rooted to the spot, while I emptied my shotgun into his stupid face over and over again, racking up the Splat points.


Sneaky, these terrorists. Absolutely anybody could be one.

What else? As you'd expect, the music is shit. Some of the lyrics to one song, playing as you're running around Miami, go, "It's America's Most Wanted, baby. Osama Bin Laden, you're next". Now, that's how to set an atmosphere.

There's some choice dialogue in the game, too. If you can imagine Duke Nukem without the irony, you'd be on the right track. Mostly, your dumb guy pretty much states the obvious about what he picks up. But I'm not entirely sure how many soldiers or special operatives would, whilst using a flame thrower in the general direction of the enemy, shout "Time to torch you up". Doesn't seem like something you'd say in the heat of the moment (did you see what I did there?). Pull off a headshot, you might say "See ya". Or in the fighting bit, you might come out with "How's your ribs?" I don't know if it's an attempt at James Bond-style humour, but it really doesn't work.


Simon Cowell decided that Bin Laden wouldn't make it past judges' houses.

America's 10 Most Wanted is a shocking game in every respect. I mean, it's a really poor game in terms of quality, and if it's trying to make a statement or offer American teens some kind of revenge or closure, then it's horribly misguided at best. If they'd gone for all-out satire in a World Police-type affair, it might have been better thought of. Instead it's a waste of money in every aspect, unless you want one last ditch try at getting rid of a case of lockjaw.

Advent Calendar - December 6th.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas (XBox 360)

I have only ever played one Tom Clancy game before today. That was the original Splinter Cell on the PC, and I only played that once. I quickly decided that all that sneaking about wasn't for me, and since then I haven't so much as looked at a Tom Clancy game. So that makes today's choice particularly interesting to me... what on Earth is going on in Tom Clancy's world today, I wonder?

Rainbow Six Vegas is, apparently, a tactical squad-based first person shooter. I say "apparently", because in all the time I played the game I never got far enough to find that out.

Seriously.


Wow. This bit looks awesome. Pity I didn't get to play it.

The game starts with you being dropped from a helicopter into a terrorist-infested part of a Mexican border town. You have to fight your way through the town to regroup with your team. Why you couldn't have just been dropped off where your team was is beyond me, but then I guess you wouldn't have had an introductory level.

And it looks quite pretty, as Mexican border towns go. Even for its age, Rainbow Six Vegas has some pretty good graphics. The intention is to use the walls as cover and poke your head around corners to see what lies ahead. But this doesn't work well for me. It's actually quite jarring when you pull away from your cover, enough to be annoying enough for me to do it as little as possible.


Lads! Has anyone got any tokens? I just need to hold two and I'll win ten grand!

Shooting from cover is also more or less impossible. You can do it, but of course you're not accurate and so you might as well not bother. I'll credit the game for building some real tension as you're trapped by terrorist gunfire, sitting there trying to work out your next action. Unfortunately, I'm too feeble to execute whatever that action might be, and I found myself hearing the main character's death sigh again and again.

I did at least manage to get to a checkpoint, which is something. It took me about 40 minutes and multiple tries, but at least it meant I wasn't stuck playing the very beginning of the game the whole time. No, I actually managed to play the second part of the first level over and over again, making pretty much no progress from game to game. I never did get to see Vegas... just as well I've been there before.


Ocean's 11, this ain't.

I don't like too many FPS games, and I don't like tactical squad-based games, either. But in the spirit of the blog and discovering new games, I thought I'd give this one a fair shot. Sadly, it hasn't worked out. It might not have helped that the copy I bought from eBay came without instructions, but I honestly don't think it would have made any difference if it came with instructions, cheat codes and Tom Clancy himself to sit and hold my hand while I played. I'm just not very good at games like this, and while I perservered with Call of Duty 4 and enjoyed that a lot, Rainbow Six Vegas just left me utterly frustrated. I'm sure it's fantastic if you like this kind of game, and apparently the multiplayer is excellent but I didn't play that. And I won't be either... I'm donating Rainbow Six Vegas to somebody else's gaming pile.

Clive Barker's Undying (PC)

Clive Barker's Undying is not a game I've ever played before. It's not a game I would have ever picked by myself, nor would I have bought it if I was browsing the racks in the game shops. So why on Earth would I pick it for this blog? What brought it to my attention? Well, years ago, my wife used to play it. And she really enjoyed it, too. When I spotted it in a "3 for £10" offer, I snapped it up... mostly for her, but also in the knowledge I could write about it myself. Two for the price of one.


I've... got a pocket full of... Kryptonite

It's a First-Person Shooter... and there's the reason I hadn't played it before. If you've read much of this blog in the past, you'll know it's not a genre I'm particularly au fait with. Still, as I've said before, I'm not averse to a good blast now and again, and Lorraine promised me that this was quite an intense, creepy game. Excellent... I like a game that has something to make it stand out from the crowd.

And Undying certainly does stand apart. At first, it sets just the right spooky atmosphere, with a nice scene-setting intro to get you going before you're dumped outside a lightning-enshrouded mansion. Good stuff. Unfortunately, after five minutes of play the scariest thing is the voice acting. The accents are atrocious! If you thought Dick van Dyke's "Gawd bless yer guvnor, me cheeky Cockernee sparrer" accent was a shocker, you ain't heard nothing yet. English, Irish... doesn't matter. They're mangled beyond belief.


That's them! The source of all troubles. Well, the middle one's alright... isn't he?

Not to worry, though. Although the story is important, it comes across well enough that the dodgy accents don't ruin it. In fact, they provide a bit of light relief in among the frights and the action.

Undying has a lot of action, once it gets going. As things unfold, you learn more and more about the Covenant family, who occupied the mansion until their untimely deaths. Only one remains, your friend Jeremiah Covenant, but even he isn't well and he wants you to find out what's going on before the seemingly inevitable happens. Unfortunately, although his siblings are dead, they still make their presence felt... strongly. They're to be found in ghostly form, roaming the mansion's rooms and corridors, frightening servants and generally getting up to no good. Your task is to stop them and, ultimately, the Undying King, who plans to be a bit naughty in our realm.


What are you laughing at?

You have a trusty old revolver to start with, and this comes in handy for dispatching Howlers, nasty looking things that think nothing of ripping off your head and eating it. Yuck. Other weapons can be found, along with spells which you can activate with the mystical green stone that you keep around your neck for protection. You're going to need everything you can find, and your wits, as everything ramps up toward its (no doubt terrible) conclusion.

Clive Barker's Undying has all the ingredients of a classic FPS, and thankfully it mixes them just right. The action is tricky and satisfying, the story is interesting and there's a good amount of scary stuff going on. For a game that's almost ten years old, it still feels good to play today, and is more interesting than a majority of the more generic shooters with rubbish, cobbled-together storylines. Given that it can be picked up for so little these days and runs without issue on a modern PC, I would recommend that anyone pick this up. I'm heading back in there now...

Number 1.

Halo 3: ODST

And so, we come to the game I've enjoyed the most during my time so far with the blog. And to the possible disappointment of some, it's not some obscure little undiscovered gem, but a massive gaming juggernaut. For shame.

But while it might have been nice to have unearthed an unknown classic for the top spot, it wasn't to be. There have been plenty of those scattered throughout the blog, and there will undoubtedly be more to come.

Halo 3: ODST, for me, though, is something of an undiscovered gem. I say that because I've never really been into the Halo franchise. I played the first one for the first time in March 2009, and enjoyed it quite a bit. But then I left it alone, and I haven't played Halo 2 or Halo 3 yet, at all. A mate at work lent me ODST in exchange for one of my games... I can't say I was particularly bothered in having it, and actually didn't think I'd even get around to playing it.

Still, one night I found myself at a bit of a loose end, and wasn't in the mood for any of my games. And so, I found myself turning to ODST.


I hate those little buggers with the shields. And they hate my big gun.

I'd barely even looked at the box before that point, so it was a very pleasant surprise to find that the three main characters were voiced by actors from the Firefly TV series. I absolutely love that show, and so I was instantly provided with an "in" to the game. And yes, their "acting" and the characters' interaction was a definite highlight for me.

That wouldn't have counted for much, though, if I didn't enjoy the game. Thankfully, it lived up to the promise that the voice cast provided, and then some. It wasn't just the shooting action - although that was satisfying, with some very intense moments - and it wasn't just the story. For me, it was the way the story was told that did it.

Halo 3:ODST puts you in the suit of a rookie trooper investigating the disappearance of the main ODST team. It sees you playing a level as the rookie, and at the end of the level you'll find a clue as to what exactly happened in that area. Taking the clue, you'll then play a flashback as the character involved in that particular plot strand.


That hardly seems fair, a little jeep against an armoured space craft. Let's even it up with some well-placed firepower.

I don't recall ever playing a game with this approach (although I'm sure there probably are some), and it was highly refreshing and really intriguing, and I was genuinely pushed on through the game because of this, wanting to find out what had happened. And because of the atmosphere in the levels where you play the rookie, there's a definite feeling of "what the hell happened here?".

The gameplay is really quite varied for a first person shooter, with vehicle levels, massive battles across large areas, or tight, constricted corridor sections. There's a lot of humour, both from enemies and the main characters. And of course, there's a good story which is told really well. I was thoroughly gripped from beginning to end... which is saying something, because I've hardly completed any XBox 360 games at this time.

For all these reasons, for all the hours I put into it without a single moment of boredom, frustration, anger or apathy, for its constant entertainment across the entire game and for actually making me want to play a FPS from beginning to end because I cared what happened, Halo 3:ODST is the game I've most enjoyed playing for my blog to date.

Perfect Dark (XBLA)

Perfect Dark is one of the most revered games of all time. But as it was on the N64, I didn't get to play it. Never thought I would, either... until an updated version was released on XBox Live Arcade, for 800 points. Handy!

However, coming into it without the benefit of rose-tinted glasses makes the game a harder sell to me. I'm not that much of a FPS player to begin with, but those I've played lately are modern, state-of-the-art efforts, and however groundbreaking the original Perfect Dark might have been, this update would have to go some to match any of them.

I'm not sure that it goes far enough.


Oooh! That looks... exciting... ummmm...

For a start, although it's only on XBLA, it's still just an update of a two-genereations-old game, and so it doesn't look all that great. It's serviceable, sure, with some nice touches... but it still looks like a bit of an old wrinkly.

Gameplay isn't what I would call sublime, either. There's nothing wrong with it... in fact, old-schoolers might prefer the lack of hand-holding. But in areas that look very similar everywhere you go, it's quite easy to get lost, or rather, not know where you're meant to be going next.


You're Out Of Your Mind, thinking that looks like Mrs Beckham.

Mind you, although I said there was a lack of hand-holding, I played on the first (easiest) difficulty level, and the aiming was more or less done for me, and the guards were a bit on the stupid side, allowing Posh Spice, sorry, Joanna Dark to wander around relatively stress-free.

There's no doubt I haven't got the most out of this game at this point... I need to play on a tougher difficulty level, and I haven't even touched the multiplayer, which is the aspect most fans of the original seem to love best. I like the "spy behind enemy lines" element of the game, and I suspect I'll press on and look for improvements... but for me, it's not the all-conquering supergame it's been labelled.

Aliens vs Predator Classic 2000 (PC)

I think it would be fair to say I'd need more time with this game to appreciate it. I didn't have very long today, but I thought this would be easy enough to get into... load up, pick one of three species, and kill lots of things. So in that respect, I found it somewhat disappointing.

Aliens vs Predator, this original version, is interesting for the fact it lets you play as either the classic Alien (from the films, of course!), the Predator, or as a Colonial Marine. I started off with the Predator, thinking that would easily be the best. Not so. You start off armed only with what looks like a dog's paw and your invisibility cloak, which amounts to nothing as the frightened marines will shoot you dead whether you're invisible or not.


These 3D glasses will never take off...

Still, after a bit of sneaking around I was able to kill all the marines in my immediate area. And then... nothing. There were about six rooms available, and I couldn't find any way out. There was a walkway high up, but I couldn't use my grappling hook so I couldn't get up there. Stuck. Bah. So next, I tried the Alien.

I started off in what looked like an Egyptian pyramid. I slid down something that looked like I would imagine a birth canal might look like, into another room... with no exits. What? So with the Alien, I had a total of two rooms and no enemies. This was turning into more of a puzzle game than a FPS!


Die, alien scum! Oh hang on, I've used that, haven't I?

And so, it was on to the more boring and traditional human character. At least, now, I was given a game to play!

It's a very typical FPS, albeit made more tense by the atmosphere that's generated by the standard elements you'd expect. The high-pitched beeping of the alien tracker will always, always set you on edge, and when you round a corner and there's one right in your face, it's jumping-in-fright time. And that's always good.

Still, that alone wasn't enough to keep me in the game. I might go back to it at some point, but I have other FPS fish to fry, and unless someone tells me how to get into the Alien or Predator versions of this, then it'll sit in the Steam "My games" tab, untouched until 2020, more than likely.