Guardian Heroes (Sega Saturn)

So here it is, my hundredth post in this blog. And to celebrate, I'm playing a game that most consider to be a classic. I'm not playing it because of that, though... I'm playing it because I absolutely love it!

I owned Guardian Heroes when it came out. I'm not sure how it sold... it seems to be a bit of a cult classic. And when you consider the fact that it sells for as much now as it did then... well, it mustn't have put up particularly big numbers. Then again, most of Treasure's games (for this is one) seem to be more in the realms of cult classics.

I got straight into Guardian Heroes when I first played it, and it took no time at all for the magic to work itself on me again this time around. It is, in essence, a scrolling beat-'em-up, but it's much deeper than probably anything that came before it.

Part of this depth can be attributed to its RPG-like elements. You'll gain experience points for everything you batter, and as you're almost constantly beseiged by large numbers of enemies, you'll likely be doing a lot of levelling up. It makes for a far more entertaining game than if it were purely done Double Dragon-style.


The Undead Hero gets to work. He's a bit like an attack dog. Only undead. And with a huge sword. And he can get by without a constant supply of Spillers Shapes.

Adding to the depth a bit more literally is the playfield. Naturally, you walk along a side-scrolling area in your quest, but the screen is split into three parallels. You can jump to any of these with a tap of the appropriate button, and this helps to make your fighting a bit more tactical. It's not exactly at the level where you'd start to call it a strategy game, but choosing when to hop to another level can either save your skin if you're in a tight spot, or work to your advantage against the enemy.

To make it even better, you play as part of a team of bad-ass characters, all of which have differing traits which serve to help the battle in different ways. None of your team is as impressive as the Undead Hero that bands with you, though... when he goes berserk, it's a sight to see!

Guardian Heroes is, quite simply, a whole load of fun to play. It might be a bit of a button-masher, like most beat-'em-ups, but it's always entertaining. And with branching pathways throughout the game, there's plenty of replay value. In fact, the only bad thing about playing this again is that I couldn't save my game! My Saturn's battery has been dead for quite a while. Anyone got a memory card they don't want?

Ton up!

No game today! That's because, according to my dashboard, I've made 100 posts! Well, almost... this is 99, so... well, you know. To mark this achievement, I'm going to dig through all my games and play something special, whether I've played it before or not.

A hundred posts. For a while there, I didn't think I'd get to that milestone. Now I'm looking forward to the next hundred!

Gods (Amiga)

I'd been quite keen to play this from the moment I saw it sitting in my pile of Amiga games. I kind of had a few fleeting memories of it from way back, but I don't think I actually played it then. But with it having the name Bitmap Bros. on it, there was naturally a high level of expectation that I'd be having a good time.

And I did.

I wrote a description of Gods, and in reading it back, it sounded like I was slagging the game off. I described it as being like a typical Amiga platform game - filled with lumbering, detailed characters that are too large for the playing area. And while that's true, it doesn't actually detract from the game... in fact, it helps to define it.

Gods, as I said, is a platform game. You wander around, jumping from ledge to ledge, climbing ladders, and shooting nasty things. Hardly innovative, that. To make things more interesting, there are some puzzle elements in there. There's nothing that will tax your brain... mostly, you're going to be pushing switches until you get them in the right positions to destroy obstacles or open trapdoors. It does add an extra element to the game, although as you might imagine, it can be a little frustrating at times. Depends how much you hate switches and levers.


No, your character is not a naked welder...

The best thing for me about this game is that it throws loads of loot at you. You'll always have gems and crystals and other valuable little bits falling to the ground, ready to boost your score. And that's something else I really like... Gods may be an adventurey-platform game, but it's also a great high score game. High scores will always appeal to me, being a child of the arcade age, so I appreciate the fact that this is a platform game where you can score over a million points, if you're good.

There are problems and flaws here... most notably with the controls. The problem is one that affected many a game back then... our joysticks only utilised one fire button. Because of this, you can only jump diagonally, and you can't fire whilst crouching... instead cycling through your "very limited" inventory. I think that, although I enjoyed the game, it would be a lot more fun if it didn't have these issues. In fact, I think I'd really like a modern remake of Gods. I think that using a modern controller and mapping these actions to other buttons would make it better to play. As it is, though, Gods is a very polished and pretty entertaining game.

Hexen (PC)

I bought this on Steam for about ten pence, ages ago, along with Hexen II and Heretic. All were highly praised back in the day, I seemed to remember, so I might as well buy them cheap while I could and play them when I had time.

Who knows how many years ago that was? And I never got around to any of them. As if that comes as any surprise! But now is as good a time as any, so I fired up Steam for the first time in ages... looking through my games list on there, I've got a few candidates for this blog, just sitting waiting.

Anyway, Hexen. I wish I could tell you a lot about it, but for the vast majority of my time I was completely stuck. There were some steps up to an area with windows, and an area with trees, one of which concealed a door which needed a key, and one a cave where I could punch everything to death through stalagmites but couldn't actually get in.


All the leaves are broooown... and the sky is greeeeey... and so is everything else.

It wasn't exactly a lot of fun. In fact, all I was going to write here was "Doom, but with more grey and brown". And then, about five minutes before I was packing in, I read the instructions, found the key I had to press to open doors, realised there was actually a door at the top of the steps, and went through. And so, the game has opened up to me somewhat. I died pretty quickly after that, and didn't have time to start again, but at least I now realise what I need to do.

I was never a Doom fan... mostly because I've always been rubbish at it. Hexen seems to play much the same, and I expect I'll be equally poor when it comes to playing it, but I feel I owe it another shot, at least.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)

I might upset a few people here... so be it.

If there was one thing that baffled me in my time in America, it was the incredible popularity there of Super Smash Bros. Possibly second only to Madden, any Super Smash Bros. game is a genuine bona fide system seller. I've never been able to understand that. I didn't play it that much, but everywhere I went, every message board I posted on, Americans were going crazy for Super Smash Bros. There always was (and is) talk of it being an incredibly deep fighting game, with the best multiplayer action you can find.

So when Morrisons offered Wii chart games for fifteen quid last year, I thought I'd give Brawl a shot. Of course, as is the way, it then sat on the shelf, unplayed by me. Until now... it's the perfect game to dig out for this blog.

Having played it for a couple of hours now... I just don't get it. I simply don't see where the rabid fanboy love for this game comes from. Incredibly deep fighting game? For me, it's a simple button-masher, a weird cross between Virtua Fighter and Shao-Lin's Road and nothing more. Half the time I'd just stand there hitting the button as enemy characters jumped into my weapon. The rest of the time, I didn't really know what was going on.


Doesn't this just look like the most fun imaginable? No. No, it doesn't.

I suppose I can see why Nintendo-philes would like it... there's a large cast of Nintendo characters and some clever backgrounds incorporating Nintendo games. For me, though, there's just nothing here. I can honestly say that I didn't have a single moment of enjoyment the whole time I played it. Actually, that's not quite correct... when you complete the game, you get to shoot the credits. That was quite good fun. Other than that, though... I didn't even enjoy the much-vaunted multiplayer.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a game that's loved by many, but I can't for the life of me see why. You would think the opportunity to smash Mario's fat face in would be unmissable, but for me at least, it's just a mess. America, I love you, but sometimes you're weird.

The Club (XBox 360)

Right, enough of that sword-wafting questing rubbish. I fancied something a bit more straightforward, and The Club is nothing if not straightforward.

I've had this lying around for ages, having got it for nowt with a magazine subscription. I've dipped in and out of it, but never really stuck with it for any length of time before now. Silly me.

The Club is an arena shooter, with a difference. You pick from eight characters, and set about wreaking havoc. There's a storyline of a sort, which attempts to explain why these madmen would be running around abandoned locations shooting people, but none of that matters in the slightest. All that matters is that you have some top fun, tearing around and blowing enemies away at will.

This game comes by way of Bizarre Creations, who are better known for their Project Gotham Racing series. This could have been an interesting new series, but I don't think it's done all that well, sales-wise. It has a racing game element to it, in that many of the levels are races against the clock. The quicker you finish these levels, the higher your end-level bonus. But in order to really ramp up your scores, you'll need to master the art of combos.


Oooh... guns, guns, guns!

Combos are achieved by linking kills. Once you kill a bad guy, a combo meter will start ticking. If you can kill another one before this ticks down, you'll increase the combo meter, which is basically a score multiplier. The higher the multiplier, naturally, the higher your score for each kill. And if you can pull off a spectacular kill, say for instance a headshot whilst diving, you'll score even more highly.

The scope for high scores is enormous. This could almost make a fantastic arcade game, if it weren't for the fact that control pad style controls don't work so well in the arcade. It does take those old-school arcade stylings and play with them in a fresh new way. And with masses of levels of varying types (survival levels are also in evidence, for example), if you can put the effort in and learn where everything is in order to maximise your score, there's a mountain of entertainment here.

The Club is old-fashioned arcade fun, dressed in the clothing of a modern shoot 'em up. It's almost certainly the most testosterone-filled adrenaline rush of a game you could find, and it's all the better for that.

Dark Savior (Sega Saturn)

I've waited a long, long time to play Dark Savior. Touted as the unofficial sequel to Landstalker, a game I've really enjoyed on two occasions, I was really eager for its release on the Sega Saturn. When it did finally hit the shops, I bought it immediately... only to have to sell my Saturn very soon after, before I'd even got the chance to go beyond the opening sequence.

It wasn't one of the games that came with my current Saturn, but thanks to the wonders of eBay, I now own it again. Finally, after all this time, my chance to play the game I waited for so eagerly has arrived.

And... I'm a bit underwhelmed.

First off, although the only link to Landstalker is that they have the same developer, you can tell that this is basically an upgraded version of the earlier game in many ways. It features the same viewpoint, the same action-adventure-platform style of gaming, the same text-box messages to sit through. It all looks so much prettier now... and yet, it seems to have lost a lot of the charm of Landstalker.


He couldn't possibly look any more heroic, there.

The game does have a different tack on things, by having different parallel paths down which the game can travel. Which parallel you take depends on how long it takes you to complete the opening act. That is an interesting and different way to start the game, but it just doesn't grab you like it should. It's a strange thing.

It's quite hard to put my finger on the problem with Dark Savior... it just doesn't feel right when compared to Landstalker. It's a bit of a shame... it's an epic quest alright, and one I feel as though I ought to have a decent crack at completing... I just don't think I'm enjoying it enough to justify it right now.

Dungeon Master (Amiga)

Through time, there have been games that have been groundbreaking, revolutionary and system defining. Those games are remembered still, and will be as long as people continue to write about the history of videogames. Better yet, they will continue to be played, such is their legendary status.

If there's one game that defined the Commodore Amiga for me, it's Dungeon Master. And yet, I never really played it. As I've mentioned before, I never owned an Amiga, and relied on trips to my mate's house for brief sojourns into 16-bit territory. And Dungeon Master isn't a two-player game, and nor is it something you can really share, so all I really got out of it was the excitement of watching and sharing an adventure.

Not any more. Now that the mate's Amiga is mine, I can have a Dungeon Master adventure of my own. That was what I thought... of course, that was one of the games that had gone missing from his collection. A scout around eBay rectified that problem, and a wee while later, I was on my way.

There's a moment in Dungeon Master, near the beginning, where you know there's no turning back. You've wandered around the top level, gazed at the not-very-attractive pictures of heroes, and chosen the character that feels best suited to you. And then you find yourself at the top of a flight of stairs... you know that as soon as you set foot on them, your adventure will truly begin...


In fact, this is the moment... one mouse click, and I'm in trouble...

It didn't take me long to realise that the game is far more intense and enjoyable when you're actually playing it. In fact, almost from the very start where I saw myself chased down a corridor by a mummy, I was well and truly hooked. The fact that the mummy was a slowly-shambling monster didn't make it any less frightening... when you're barely armed, it's more than scary enough.

I've played for a good while before writing this, and I'm pretty well hooked by now. I've found that you have to be careful where you save your game, though... if you save at the wrong moment, you could be playing the same part of the game over and over again before you realise you'll never have enough health and you'll have to start again. Not so bad if you're early on in the quest, but soul-destroying if you've been playing for hours.

Dungeon Master is a renowned classic, and rightly so. It's filled with enough horrors, tricks and traps to keep anyone enamoured for weeks. I'm thrilled to finally have the chance to play this at length... I intend to savour the experience.

The one-armed gamer.

When you've got an eight-year-old child, gaming is easy. You can play in your spare time, or if your child is around, you can play with them, thus ensuring the love of games will continue in the family. Once you throw a newborn baby into the mix, things are different. There's not really any such thing as free time, anymore.

I seem to be spending a lot of time with a baby in one arm. Often, it's post-feeding, waiting for him to drop off to sleep. But then, he might be out for a short while and then will wake up and be fussy. So you have to hold him again to try and soothe him.

They're not very interesting though, babies. They're cute, and fascinating, and amazing. But they're not interesting. They can't even tell you what their problem is, let alone have a meaningful conversation with you. And so you find yourself kind of hamstrung, looking after a tiny person that does nothing but eat and sleep and squawk and tie up one of your arms.

This is where my iPod Touch is showing its worth. In the moments where Ryan (our newborn) is settled, I can use my free arm to indulge in a spot of gaming. It might seem a little odd to have a baby in one hand/arm and a games machine in the other, but due to the nature of the touchscreen, it works. Or at least, it does in some cases.


Would it be too obvious to say "Oh, balls"? It would? Oh, OK.

A game that was recommended to me by many people is Orbital. It didn't sound too promising... fire numbered balls onto a playfield. The balls start with the number 3, then reduce with each hit until they disappear. Trouble is, their size depends on how much space is around them when they land. So if you shoot the ball and it lands in the middle of the playfield, it's going to fill most of the screen and knacker your game.

In practice, it's a work of maddening, addictive genius. Every single game ends through your own stupidity... you can never claim that the game itself was to blame. It's also hard. If you score over 100, you'll be doing very well indeed (clue: I haven't). And yet, it's got an incredible just-one-more-go factor to it. And for only 59p at the moment, it's an absolute bargain.

And you can play it using only your thumb. For the meantime, it's something of a Godsend.

Ghosts 'n' Goblins... did you know...

...there's a new Ghosts 'n' Goblins game out? Well, there is. It's called Ghosts 'n' Goblins Gold Knights, and it's on the iPhone and iPod Touch (which is how I'm posting this... hence the lack of links and pictures). Yeah, I know what you're thinking... that'll be rubbish. But actually... it's alright! Capcom have certainly taken into account the limitations of the platform, and have tailored the game accordingly. As a result, you've got a slightly slower-paced, more laid-back GnG game, which will be great news for many a frustrated veteran and may be sacrilege to the die-hard.

Some things remain familiar... Arthur is back, as usual, although you can choose between him and Lancelot. The music is a nice riff on the original theme. There's a big map, comprising of (I think) six levels, and the usual array of hidden chests, extra weapons and end-level bosses .

Early impressions are quite good... the controls are not as good as you'd like, but not too bad or frustrating for an iPod game, although there is that old problem of cramp or wrist pain after a while. I think it may prove to be a touch too easy in the end, but that remains to be seen. It currently has an introductory price of £1.79/$2.99, but there's no trial version, so if you fancy it you should jump in quickly.

Titan Quest (PC)

After yesterday's dose of gritty realism, it's back to a realm of fantasy today with Titan Quest. This game takes place in one of the most epic settings of all... ancient Greece.

Greek mythology is something I've had a liking for since I was a wee lad, when I bought a book on Greek myths in a school book club. And what kid could fail to be completely captivated when watching Jason and the Argonauts? It's such a rich world full of amazing characters that it's ripe for videogame fun.

Titan Quest is a Diablo variant, and of course I played Diablo II a while ago. I found myself really enjoying that, and had high hopes for this game.


Hahaha, they're all dead! Whoops... erm, except for that big bugger firing flaming projectiles at me. Ruuuun!

Unfortunately, it's just too hard for me. I mean, it's rock. Certainly to start with, although maybe if I play it long enough and level up sufficiently, it will get a bit easier. As it stands, I'll march into a field to fight something (usually a combination of Satyrs and wild boars at the moment... it's still early on), and find myself either running off to lick my wounds or being regenerated at one of the town's fountains.

A plus point to this is that everything you've killed stays dead, so when you go back to pick up the fight, it should be easier second time around. And third time around. And so on, until you've finally won. It just seems to be a bit too much of a drag to be enjoyable, and is actually quite frustrating. I'm sure that with good use of potions and healing stones though, progress may be made a little more easily... I just haven't got to grips with them yet.

Still, if you like games where lewt is dropped by the barrowload and fancy a real challenge, Titan Quest is just what you've been asking the Gods for.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (XBox 360)

I feel like a bit of a shit with this game. I was involved in a discussion about Modern Warfare 2 the other day, and I commented that I still hadn't been able to afford the first one yet. In an act of splendid kindness, I was sent Call of Duty 4, and then today, out of the blue, I was presented with a copy of Modern Warfare 2. I feel kind of bad.

Still, I suppose the best way to get past that is to take it out on someone else, and who better than evil scumbag terrorists, right?

To be honest, I debated not writing about this at all. I mean, I must be the only person not to have played this, so who would want to read about it? On the other hand, with Modern Warfare 2 out today, this is possibly the best time to write about it.


I know Eastenders is bad, but that's a bit of an extreme way to get it off the air...

One inescapable fact has arisen whilst playing CoD 4... I'm shit at it. Really, terribly bad. I had to play the little intro obstacle course thing four times just to get a time that would put me at Recruit level (I thought it would be embarrassing to play as a Rookie). From that point on I did OK, with just the odd death here and there, but now I've hit the TV station (which can't be that far into the game) and I'm utterly stuck and out of my depth. I really must have died 100 times there so far. I've nearly blundered through it a couple of times, but generally speaking, each try has lasted a minute or less.

It's fair to say that I'm not a big FPS player. I do enjoy them, I just don't partake that often. The last Call of Duty game I played was the first one, which I loved. I'm finding number four to be intense, exhilirating and frightening. It's a fantastic game, and one which I am most definitely going to be persevering with. I have no doubt it will be worth my while.

Brütal Legend (XBox 360)

There may be a small amount of cheating going on in my blog this time around... cheating, in that not every game I write about will be a game I have played that day. I've played quite a lot in the time I've slacked off on the writing, so there's some catching up to be done.

Today's is a case in point. I'm writing about Brütal Legend, a game which I no longer even own, but bought on the release date, had my fun with and completed. And once it was over, it was time to pass the torch.

Brütal Legend comes from the more-than-fertile mind of Tim Schafer, the man behind many a gaming classic, with Grim Fandango being arguably his best. Psychonauts was his last game, and Brütal Legend is more in keeping with that than his older adventures.

In case you hadn't heard, Brütal Legend is a game about heavy metal. How many games are more metal than this? The answer is: none. The story actually concerns the best roadie in the world who, upon suffering a seemingly-fatal accident on stage whilst rescuing one of the members of the band he's looking after, actually is trasnported to a faraway land of METAL when his blood seeps into his demonic belt buckle. Fantastic.

It must have been a difficult job casting the part of the lead character. You would want someone who's an actor by trade, but who loves videogames and who's sufficiently steeped in the lore of metal that he'd throw himself wholeheartedly into the part. Fortunately for Tim Schafer, Jack Black fits that description to a T, and it's obvious that he had a blast making this game. Then again, who wouldn't when they make the lead character basically a much more awesome version of yourself?

There are other familiar faces and voices here, voices plucked from the heavy metal fraternity and who do a pretty good job. Lemmy is always a welcome sight and sound, and he has a decent role here. Lita Ford and Rob Halford show up too. But perhaps the biggest revelation here for me is Ozzy Osbourne. I'm not an Ozzy fan - I don't like his singing and I'm bored with his antics. But in this game, he's surprisingly funny. OK, so he's just reading the lines he was given, but they're all delivered in a very entertaining manner.


Supercharged and flying low, liquid dynamite...

The game itself is a mish-mash of styles... part Golden Axe, part Batman (I say that because driving your awesome car, The Deuce, feels similar to the classic Amiga Batman game), part Pokemon (there are loads of things to collect) and part RTS. That last bit worried me, because I hate RTS games, but it's really simplified and not too difficult to get on with at all.

A final word must go to the landscape that the game takes place in. It's a truly fantastic world, designed to look like every fantasy heavy metal album cover ever. And it does a fantastic job of getting that across... from howling metal beasts to distant volcanos, stark landscapes to breathtaking iconic vistas, the feeling of immersion in a fantasy world is complete.

With a cracking sense of humour, a huge heavy metal soundtrack and a nice variety of game styles set across a game that is neither too difficult nor too long, Brütal Legend is a game I'm very happy to have in this world. I feel a bit of a traitor to my metal brethren for having sold it, but in time, I will return...

DrawRace (iPhone/iPod Touch)

I thought about coming back with a bang, and playing a really huge title that everyone knows. Instead, I've opted for low-key.

DrawRace is a game I bought when I was going through an iTunes 59p app phase. We've all been there... they're just so damn hard to resist! This one looked appealing... a racing game in the vein of Super Sprint, but with a unique control method. It actually reminded me of BMX Simulator, for some reason.

As you might have guessed from the incredibly self-explanatory title, DrawRace is a racing game where you draw the racing line onto the touch screen for your car to follow. Sounds simple enough, and it is, and it's also genius at work.

You don't just draw the racing line though... it also picks up the speed at which you draw, and your car will move accordingly. If you go too fast around a corner with your finger, your car will slide off and lose valuable time. You won't believe how well it works... the tension as you race against the computer car is palpable.


Zoom... just one look, and then my heart went boom...

There are twenty tracks to race on... to be fair, many of them are quite easy to win on, but some offer a real challenge and will take a good few tries to get past. Once you've beaten them all, you can go back and try and improve your times for the online leaderboards, or maybe try an online multiplayer race. I've never actually tried the multiplayer myself, but it's a nice option to have.

DrawRace is now £1.19, which is possibly a little bit too much for an impulse buy. I do think you would get your money's worth out of it if you have any interest in racing games, and the control method is not just a gimmick, but genuinely adds something fresh. Updates were promised a while back... I'm eagerly awaiting them, myself...

Let's try this again.

Alright, as is perfectly evident, this managed to slip away from me. My wife got pregnant (a great thing, by the way!), which left me with a lot of work to do and not a lot of spare time. Now that the baby is here, I've stupidly convinced myself that I'll have more time to set down my thoughts. It's a ridiculous idea, but I'm going to have a crack at it. Should be the ideal way to kill some time when waiting for my new son to settle back to sleep after a 3am feed...

Deaths in the family.

This is a trying time for me as a gamer. My time has been very limited of late, but even worse, equipment is packing up on me. First of all, my "upstairs" telly, where I play all of my old systems, has died. That's incredibly limiting in terms of writing this blog... I can't really bring everything downstairs for gaming, as the "proper" telly is usually being used for something.

And then, yesterday, without warning, my XBox 360 proudly displayed the "E74 error" message. I'm gutted, although I suppose it was only a matter of time before I got my first 360 death.

I'll be looking into getting that replaced next week. The telly may be more of a problem. I have, fortunately, still got plenty of games I can still play... I've got a good few Wii games there, and there's the PC games I was sent recently, plus the iPod has a stream of games coming out all the time.

So, I'm going to try and pick up the pace here, yet again. It's easy to let things slip... I need to get back in the saddle.

Playman Track & Field (iPhone/iPod Touch)

Funny how sometimes you just can't resist something.

I was browsing the Apple Store and happened across this in the "What's Hot" section, for just 59p. The words "Track & Field" were almost enough to get me to buy it regardless, and the positive reviews tipped the balance that little bit further. I was sold.

And I'm happy that I was! Playman Track & Field is very nice indeed!

The game has five events... not too bad given that the original (and Hyper Sports, the follow up) only had six. They're all standard for this type of game... 100 metres, Long Jump, 110 metres hurdles, Pole Vault and Javelin. You can play each event separately, or run them all together in a kind of half-decathlon, where you score points for how well you do in each event.

There are two difficulty levels, Amateur and Professional. You shouldn't have too much difficulty winning every event in Amateur... Professional is where the challenge lies. It's very difficult to get good enough to beat your computerised opponents at some of the events.

So how do you play? It's not exactly like the original Track & Field... belting the crap out of an iPhone screen would not be a good idea. Instead, coloured buttons appear on the screen randomly, and you have to hit them correctly and as quickly as you can to build up speed. Then, at the end of the event, you hold two buttons for differing effects (to "dip" across the line in the running events, for jumping or throwing in the others).

It all works really well, it's challenging, fun and addictive to play, and it has a very cute and endearing style. I would say if you have any kind of liking for Track & Field and fancy an on-the-go version, you could do a lot, lot worse than to spend 59p on this.

Street Fighter IV (XBox 360).

I've never been much of a fighting game fan.

Wait... let's rephrase that. I've never been much of a fan of fighting games based on martial arts. I've always got on well with boxing games... right from Fight Night and Barry McGuigan's Boxing on the Commodore 64, through the Punch-Out!! games and up to the latest-gen Fight Night games, I'm a keen fan of digital pugilism. But unless it's International Karate or Yie Ar Kung-Fu, one-on-one martial arts games have done little for me.

And that includes the Street Fighter series.

Now, I'm aware that this may by seen as sacrilege. Alright, the first one was a bit cack. But from then on, most of them are renowned as fighting classics. And I can appreciate that. They look great, they're well balanced and they play well. I've just never been able to get the hang of learning all the combinations needed for moves. If it's not "fire button + up = flying kick", I'm pretty much knackered.

Still, I went ahead and bought Street Fighter IV, because it looked good and a lot of my mates were getting it. And I played it for a bit, and I learned about three moves, and I got killed a lot. And I hated it. And I put it away for about a month.

And then, the lads on the Way of the Rodent forum started talking about having an online tournament. And I figured, seeing as I had the game, I may as well take part. If nothing else, at least I'd get a bit more play for my thirty quid.

And so I picked a character that I thought I might have a chance with... Crimson Viper. I figured that with her being a new character to the series, most people would not be as familiar with her moves and I might have a small advantage to counteract my uselessness.

I started practicing. And I didn't do very well. But then somebody suggested I change the difficulty level so that I could at least get through the game and unlock some of the other characters. And it was at this point that I actually started to enjoy the game!

I started getting the hang of some of the moves... and in fact got to the point where I could pull off a lot of them almost every time, even with the 360 control pad. I won some matches. I even got to Seth, the "Boss" character... and lost. But next time, I managed a win!

Suitably buoyed, I played with some of the other characters, and managed to win with them, too. And I learned a few moremoves into the bargain. I think I even managed to become quite reasonable with Crimson Viper. I'll never be able to hang with the big boys... Street Fighter has its own language which I don't understand, but I could now play the game with something approaching a degree of efficiency, and gain quite a bit of enjoyment from it.

What's that, you say? The tournament? How did it go?

Oh. Well, I lost my first match, although it was fairly close... and then I watched Newcastle United lose to Spurs whilst waiting for invites. The lads knew I was probably watching the match, and the invites never came. What a wasted afternoon that was.

Bullet Witch (XBox 360)

Sigh.

You know, I didn't actually buy this for me. "Yeah, right", I hear you saying... "Pull the other one, Moz. You didn't buy the game with the hot female protagonist and the free downloadable secretary and schoolgirl costumes for yourself. Suuuuure!".

It's the truth, though. See, my wife, Lorraine, used to play the Bloodrayne games a good while ago. And I've always tried to look out for games that might appeal to her along those lines. Now, I know the vampire thing was part of the appeal (bloody women and their bloody vampires... what the hell's so romantic about skinny, pasty bloodsuckers, anyway?), and Bullet Witch hasn't got that going for it. But it bears a lot of resemblance to Bloodrayne in many ways, and I quite fancied "testing" it before letting her have a go on it. She doesn't like to be frustrated when playing a game.

Guess she'll never be playing Bullet Witch, then.

Jesus. This game single-handedly awards a win to anybody that's ever argued that shooters are better on the PC simnply because of the mouse/keyboard control method. Some console games have made a decent stab at getting the controls right with sticks... but Bullet Witch just looks at you, sticks up its middle finger and runs off, laughing.

It's a real shame, because it looks great. The first section I played absolutely nailed the look of middle-class suburban America, to the point where I almost felt like I was wandering around my old 'hood. And when your scantily clad, fit-looking witch character is strutting around, taking up most of the screen in her high heels and black leather and lace, well, it has an appeal.

But then the bad guys appear. And you try and shoot them. And then... then it all goes horribly wrong.

First of all, Witchy takes an age to actually whip out her enormous broom-gun weapon. But once it is actually pointing forwards, fine-tuning it to actually aim at something is like some kind of Krypton Factor test. Left a bit, left a bit... nudge it gently... oh BOLLOCKS! OK, back a bit, right a bit... almost there... FUUUUUCK!!

It'll take you maybe three minutes to get lined up on your first bad guy. Luckily, the chances are he'll just stand there, shooting at one of the passers-by or getting bored waiting for you. So when the reticule finally does turn red, at least the game has given you a sporting chance of killing the enemy before he decides you're worth bothering with.

But that just isn't any fun at all.

I would say that Bullet Witch isn't worth even the tenner that I paid for it, simply because it's almost unplayable. I don't care that it looks good, that the premise is OK, or that I can run around in the game as a gun-toting, spellcasting lingerie model. When I can't actually shoot things in a shooting game, it kind of renders the whole thing a bit pointless.

Erm... I've got piles... again...

So having just bleated on about storage problems, what have I just done but accepted a shipment of old PC games from one of the lads?

I couldn't help it... he was offering them for nothing (thanks, Mick!), and I thought that the more games I had available for this blog, the better. And I still believe that. But where the hell am I going to put the things?

Ah well, that's to think about later. For now, I've got a range of reasonably recent games, actually. And because my PC at the time most of these came out was... a bit limited, I haven't played most of them. There are quite a few Call of Duty/Medal of Honour-type games there; actually, a lot of first-person shooters in general, with Painkiller, F.E.A.R., Quake 4 and others. There's Morrowind and Oblivion... games which will take me way, waaaay longer than my AGAD remit to play properly, but which I've always fancied. A few racing games, a couple of the Thief games, some RTS games... it's a mixed bag of goodies, alright!

Wonder what I'll go with first...?

Pics to follow (camera battery is totally dead!).