GamesBurp

Well it doesn’t get any nerdier than this. Not only is it a video game but it’s an MMO video game. Not only that but it’s based on comics. Simply by downloading the beta client I instantly became 30% less attractive to the opposite sex.

My average handsomeness aside, DCUO is a big deal not least because it requires a substantial investment from you.

First off the disc costs £30 at least. Next you must subscribe at a monthly price point of £9.99. Then you must invest your time, because if I’m paying a sub every goddamn month then I will play at every opportunity I’m given.

Cracking one out? That means you’ve got one free hand mister (or ms).

Taking a shit? Time to invest in a commode.

So what do you get for your money? Why exactly should you drop cash on DCUO?

First you must create a superhero that you will be unhappy with in some small way for as long as you can stand to keep them.  Then you must select a generic power and combat skill which will be mismatched and will underwhelm you, at first. Then simply witness your super being birthed into a world of other people whose pseudo-DC avatars are making them feel the exact same way.

But damn it I WILL enjoy this.

I chose flying and then wished I’d chosen super speed. Then a grew to like the flying animations, they’re pretty smooth and handy for carrying stuff. I mooched around Gotham and beat up some guys, smashed some stuff and rescued some people. The tasks themselves were just happening and I just kind of ticked the objectives off the list. So far, so pedestrian.

What it really needs to give it meaning is context and just as I was getting fed up, so Batman chimes in and wants me to put down some thugs. So now I’m part of a world and I have a purpose. So I take out some thugs, smash some stuff….

Then I need to rescue Batwoman because she’s too smokin’ hot to escape from the Scarecrow. So I go fight him and smash some stuff. Then I fly around Gotham to see if I can scare a civilian by taking them up a tall building but I don’t really see anyone.

DCUO has a huge stock of source material and a potentially neverending stream of content. Whenever I began to go through the motions there’d be a new quest thread or I’d level up and gain a new trait to expand my skill set. You’re flying can get faster, you can tag on an extra move to your combo or develop a new power.

As it’s the beta, it’s unfair to criticise it based on glitches so I won’t go into that. It did however, have an air of being a little bit, well, boring.

Everyone has their costume which looks like the kind of costume an ordinary person would come up with. Which it is. Then some powers, so I had flight and fire. No real reason for this combination. Just because. Then I knew martial arts. Again no particular reason why I would know martial arts.

In The Incredibles Syndrome said of his plan to give powers to all ordinary peoples “when everyone’s super…..no one will be”.

That’s kind of what DCUO does. It’s like a massive, un-licensed DIY superhero costume party.

I could live with this though, partly because that’s an awesome idea and partly because there is the promise of tons of adventures and you do get to fight with the big characters but then another thing gets stuck in the craw.

The subscription.

I understand it costs a lot to make an MMO and to continue supporting it with new content. But come on. £10 a month.

If you can buy your PSN cards cheaper than their value, which is possible, then it’ll be slightly less. For pushing into a new market on console I expected an innovative new payment plan which took account of the fact console gamers by definition and virtue of their machine, will by-and-large play many games, and will not want to be tethered to one indefinitely. A standard sub does this.

I want to play this game, I really do. But I can’t justify that price month after month, and the amount of time that is worth, plus the other games that I will want to play. Then I’ll feel I need to keep playing or I lose my character and everything I invested. Sony Online Entertainment also operate Free Realms, a micro-transaction oriented family MMO. It make huge revenue. Lord of the Rings Online just tripled their income by moving from subs to free-to-play. DCUO needs to get with the times to go mainstream.

DCUO is good, it just isnt…Super.

Team Bondi have used some wicked crazy facial capture on LA Noire and although it looks just a little bit off, like you’re squinting, it is also remarkably good at tying down a performance. The outstanding characteristic of this trailer, surpassing even the wonderful score and post -noire clichés is the breadth of character.

As you will be basing your investigation of the cases off how people act and react this efficient characterisation is essential. I’m assuming that we’ll be spending our game time trying to decipher the infamous Means-Motive-Opportunity triangle by squinting. And that’s why the faces look as though I am squinting at them.

I’ve only ever gone for arcade racers but growing some love in the lead up to Gran Turismo 5 and having played it at Eurogamer I can exclusively reveal I am very moist for this title.

In my underpants.

So even though the game has just gone gold, somehow, some people already have a copy and are being asked by Sony to take down their YouTube posts of screen caps. Because god forbid they should get free advertising.

So mooching around some I found this poor quality video of the game’s intro sequence.

It looks pretty legit but I will have to confirm its authenticity via my network of industry contacts.

*puts porn on continuous loop. screams at garden furniture mail order call centres. fails to realise phone is unplugged*

I guess the jury will have to remain out on this one until Sony forwards someone their review copy.

Ahem.

There’s probably some kind of legal impediment to prevent me from actually recommending you get stoned on the 10th of November.

So in an unrelated matter I will use the term “fisting” and its variants and you can take that to mean whatever the hell you want it to mean. I wont judge.

When November 10th rolls around you’ll be thinking

“just another Wednesday, why bother with getting fisted today?”

then

“shit the bed, it’s time for the weekly PSN and/or XBL updates, exclamation point”

then you’ll stumble across a brand spankers title by the newly re-invigorated Atari.

Atari have been around forever, they went the way of Sega before Sega went the way of Sega and now back under the wing of original co-founder Nolan Bushnell, they are after the online download only short game market. It’s probably one of the gaming sectors with most potential for growth.

Anyway, this title called Undergarden may pop out at you especially if you have, mere moments before, dabbled in a spot of fisting. If you had not then seeing the link window on your screen will probably make you want to get fisted straight away.

“But Professor Robot” (that’s me kids) you’ll cry “I spend all my money on fisting and/or I’m far to fisted too access the buy screen right now”

Well fear not because those peeps over at Atari (who may or may not have been getting their fist on while developing this title) have decided to release some sweet, sweet Demo time for you. So if you’re like me and have no money then pop on and have a look. If you have money then get the Demo so you know whether to spend that money on this. It’s win-win and you cannot fail.

Unless you’re so fisted you can’t actually stand to get to your TV.

I will most certainly be hankering after the demo, I shall leave it to your imaginations whether I shall be getting fisted while doing so. It looks kind of like an HD flash game. Hopefully you can mook around with the settings because I’d really like to reduce the ambient light and push up the contrast to emphasize those neons going on, really make it pop. It’s actually a 20 level puzzler so you’ll be able to engage some of that left brain function as a bonus.

If you can imagine PixelJunk Eden lounging around getting fisted with PixelJunk Shooter on a beanbag with the water levels of Donkey Kong Country instigating the whole affair, then that’s pretty close to what we have here.

So how can you not want to at least check it out?

I fucking love the AC Brotherhood multiplayer. It’s easily the freshest take on multiplayer since Demon’s Souls. So I’m robbing this footage from the ever wonderful Machinima so that you peeps can view the excellent give/take pacing. Aren’t I nice?

Now make me a fucking sandwich, bitch.  I don’t do this shit to get paid y’know.

Weeeeeeeeeee. So I’m back from a week off, to my outrage Chelios has posted a football game review, but he balanced it out by sharing my Civ V addiction and putting together a comprehensive list of what to expect from the Call of Duty: Black Ops multiplayer that I can’t afford to buy. While I was off I hit up the PSN store and grabbed me some demos, realised I was too late for Playstation Plus’ limited time offer of free Fallout 3 DLC (Nooooooooooooooooooo), realised no-one gives a shit about The Sims 3 Barnacle Bay DLC on PC and celebrated a 1st birthday. Good times.

On with the show.

I have a lot of time for platformers.

Designers of successful games must pull off the extraordinary feat of getting you to repeat the exact same moves for ten to forty to sixty plus hours without it numbing the mind like when I saw an 8 year old fall head first into the frozen vegetable section of Tesco.

Platformers are in principle an easy way of accomplishing this because you have a basic skill set; run, jump, shoot and can graft those moves onto any environment to keep the pace motoring along. However, it’s not as easy as all that as proven by any awful platformer you care to mention. For some reason I can only think of Jurassic Park right now, I think the Mega Drive version.

Good gameplay, that all encompassing handle of vaguery, is essential of course. Mario 64 has the bare essentials as well as the blueprint for every game of it’s ilk you’ve played in the last 15 years. Story is fast emerging as the new staple. It is almost on a par with compelling gameplay as a motivation for beating the next enemy, getting to that ledge, grabbing that next item. Though it is story that propels you forward it is ultimately how the game feels that pulls you on.

And (yes I think sometimes it is acceptable to start a sentence with “and”) so in a roundabout way we drop in on Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, a game with the distinction of being co-written by screenwriter Alex Garland. While I think games should very much not try to be movies I have no problem with a professional screenwriter having a hand in dialogue. Games on the whole need an improvement in how the characters get over.

Also, there's a slinky redhead of course.

Having no money I must sate myself with the demo. A burly man lucks out of his pod on a flying prison barge. He chases a female escapee to an escape unit, through combat bots and a crumbling ship to be held against his will by the girl upon landing in a decayed future New York by use of a neural something, which puts the brain hurt on. So far, so fine. I’m perfectly happy for there to be a bit of mystery (why was the dude in prison (falsely or for rebelling against fascism I’ll wager) and why does the woman want to get to where she’s going and just how will their relationship ultimately develop (into a situation where they pork, I’ll wager)? And blah blah blah.

You can see where it’s going but the characters themselves actually seemed to have a little subtlety to them, overt and hammy but there nonetheless. Only time will tell if it turns out that way.

Gameplay then. It’s fine. It’s no Uncharted of course, but then what is? You leap from ledge to handhold and back again and fight almost exclusively in melee though there’s bound to be a ranged weapon later on. The camera gets right up front with the action and I didn’t once find it to screw around the way it so often can.

If I get some money I’ll buy Enslaved. If it costs up to thirty pounds, but chances are I’m effing skint for two months at least.

Go HERE for the lovely Launch Trailer

Black Ops is almost upon us so I thought I’d give a run down of what we know so far. Some of this maybe wrong but I’m pretty confident I’ve got all the facts. I’ll concentrate on the multiplayer here as you pretty much know what to expect with COD single player. Globe trotting Special Forces soldiers doing the jobs no one else wants to do. Unlike previous games though Black Ops will take place across a larger time frame, we’re talking missions from the 60’s all the way up to present day.

Come down for Read more…

I'm squashed? Your mums squashed.

The best football management sim around is back for a new season and you can now download the demo before the November 5th release

http://www.sortitoutsi.net/forum/topic/47425-fm11-demo-now-available/

With Prof Robot away it means I can post football related stuff on here with out immediate ridicule.
There are 2 versions of the demo, Vanilla and Strawberry. Vanilla lets you play half a season as any one in the English or Scottish leagues, the Strawberry lets you play as any one in Europe, again for half a season.

I’ve had a quick play and as expected I think it’s great. There have obviously been plenty of tweaks in the background that you’d never know about but there has also been some pretty nice additions front and center.
Tactics wise you can now plan your set pieces to a degree, where players position themselves for corners and free kicks and so forth.
The media interactions have been spruced up a bit, now if you talk to the media it’s in an interview style, they ask questions you answer or you can steer the conversation on to different topics. Press conferences however haven’t really been touched which is slightly disappointing, there is still only a very limited amount of responses and they’re all pretty much the same as last year.
Player interactions have had a revamp too. In the past I haven’t really bothered with these much but now they again take the form of conversations. I’ve already managed to upset Gomes at Spurs. He wanted to move to a bigger club, I tried telling him I was trying to move the club forward, he didn’t believe me so I told him he was being disrespectful, he then ended the meeting. Dick.
The big change every one has been talking about is the new role of agents in the game. Now agents will offer players to you and more importantly it’s the agents who negotiate all the contracts. They’ll come in and tell you what their clients want, you then start to negotiate going back and forth with different offers. Different agents have different personalities, some are more willing to bend, others won’t budge. It’s a nice feature that adds a little drama to the usual boring process of offering your players new deals. In the past I’d just offer them what they want and be done with it. Now there is a real need to negotiate.

The pitch view has been enhanced quite a bit, the players on the pitch move more fluently and the animations more varied. It’s great, it all adds to the immersion.
I’m loving the demo and can’t wait for the new game.
In fact why the fuck am I writing this for you losers when I could be playing…later suckas.

So this one kind of crept up on us. This is released in two weeks and I had forgotten about it entirely.

I didn’t buy the first and though I’m not particularly sorry about that based on reports I had of it, I did want to see some cool parts. I wanted the boner jams of the game rather than the actual game, all the coolness distilled into a 1 hour game with all the shit left out. I played the demo which was floppy and confused but I dug the lightsaber and powers. I sometimes think the entire franchise hinges on the lightsaber and how awesome it is. I especially like the underhand style of sword fighting so it’s a double plus that the second installment has two, one for each hand, now isn’t that convenient. I don’t want to think about where they’re going to take the next game.

Here’s the great E3 2010 trailer

I played the demo yesterday and it is a big improvement. The controls, once used to them, are much tighter. By which I mean it feels much more as if you are in control especially when it comes down to mixing up your combat technique. This is where we see dividends to improved force grip targeting which has been tweaked and is now a much more reliable system. Trading saber and force powers in an offensive is now thoroughly pleasurable.Strike down this guy, mind trick that guy into suicide and force lightning those guys etc etc…..

I wouldn’t feel bad about buying this even though the protagonist is named Starkiller.

The demo has you escaping a cloning facility on Comino? Is that right? Anyway because apparently you died in the previous game you now control a clone of yourself, you smell something up and decide to crash out of there to follow the advice of the voices coming from your head. Cue slicing your way through endless stormtroopers which glow at the wound once severed into three pieces. You destroy some expensive looking shit and beat cheeks before Vader shows up to try and ruin your day. It’s typical Star Warsy stuff and you know it’s made by fans which is good because fan made Star Wars media is mostly better than actual Star Wars media.

Colour me interested. Wom.

That wom was my pretend lightsaber dramatically exclamating my opinion into your face.

Wom.

Part of Eurogamer Expo 2010Biggest surprise of the whole expo was right here.

Ass Creed II polished the shit out of the first game and made it utterly enjoyable, even while hunting down those damn feathers for the Platinum Trophy. Despite that I thought that the upcoming Brotherhood was merely a stop-gap measure for keeping the franchise on annual release until they could be bothered to make a direct sequel. A feeling intensified when creative lead Patrice Desilets departed, though it’s since been suggested that he’s only on a break. A deserved one after number 2 released.[Ed's note - Tee hee hee hee]

As it happens it’s not numbered because it’s merely a continuation of Ezio’s saga. Think of it this way. The developers probably had a lot of story ideas with an era as rich as the renaissance and a subject as strangely period and sci-fi that they were unable to fit into Assassin’s Creed II due to time and budget constraints. So some were chipped off to form the DLC episodes and seeing as how the engine and assets were pristine and still had a lot of mileage in them, they opted for a spin-off game to keep the name alive and to produce a fully priced title at much less expense, plus the inevitable DLC and Ubisoft are laughing. Thing is it’s a quality experience so I won’t feel ripped off. Take note Activision.

I’ve only played the multiplayer section but I am impressed, it is simple and devious.

You pick a character and a secondary skill set which may be sprint boost and throwing knives as in the picture above but also there is morphing to appear like a different character, crowd blending to make a small crowd look like you, a hidden gun and so on. You get a target in the top right and a beacon disc bottom center to home in on your quarry. You must kill them but at the same time you are a target to someone else. As I say very simple but implemented with panache.

If you mow through the streets you make it easy for your pursuer to spot you, so you must walk and hide in plain sight and try to identify the person you’re sending to the afterlife. It builds a wonderful tension because you’re fighting for the higher kill score so you want to go quickly but you also want to avoid being seen. You may see your target but then be killed because your pursuer spotted you. You may see your target but then he begins to chase his target so you must decide whether to chase him and risk being eyeballed or wait it out. You may chase him but he may notice so he may start to evade you. If you get to assassinate him without him making you, your pursuer may see you take the kill and go right for you.

Sometimes a warning flashes up on screen telling you to run. I’m not sure yet if this is when your would-be killer enters your area and goes loud, or whether it’s when you do that in the same area as them. Either way, running is the order of the day. So you can evade then hide, flat outrun or lead them past gates which shut after you and ledges which break the second time they’re stepped on.

It is a fine balancing act in which you are constantly alert and leads to laughter and swearing as some fucker nails you before a kill without you noticing them behind you. And it can be the split second before a kill. And it can make you uproariously triumphant when you chase a scumbag across rooves, he bails but you get the jump on him and pop out on a strut right above his head, and pounce at him, two blades in the chest.

Whereas say Medal of Honour was all staring intensely at the screen, the line of players here usually included someone laughing with mirth at them killing or being killed because it wrenches the tension up fast and high then lets it all out in succession. You’re riding this tense-release-tense-release ethos throughout the match. It’s refreshing and great to see the idea of online multiplayer being expanded and really pushing things along.

Most of all it is a ball load of fun.