Reaching for Reach...Halo that is...

This review is dedicated to the one, the only Svenzy, whose Halo skills rival that of a toddler with only half a pupil and no thumbs. DEATH OR TESTICLES!

When I leant over the counter of the gaming store I had walked in (and by walked in I mean raided {and by raided I mean killed everyone inside}) to pick up a copy of Halo Reach, I felt like I was holding history and a human head. In a sense I was holding history, but in reality I was holding a very popular game that had decided to call it a day. And a human head.

Halo was a game I had avoided for a long time. I think my first impression of Halo was unfortunately shaped by prior prejudice. The prior prejudice being that I liked good quality shoot-em ups.

That, and the shoot-em ups that I had been used to before this were Quake and Unreal Tournament. So Halo took me a little out of my reach *snigger*and proved to be a game that I really didn’t ‘get’. Going from a system where the cross-hair showed where you were shooting to having a cross hair that was a circle that went red when you were close enough but still didnt really depict where you were shooting was something I really struggled with.

Playing it now, almost a decade later, I’ve realised a two things: It doesn’t seem to have changed much and the system I once struggled with is now something I can deal with.

Playing multi-player on the same map I was in all those years ago (it’s that one in a valley and there is an ocean on one bases side and a rock face on the other bases side, no idea what it’s called, don’t care either, I’m a Viking not a cartographer) and the only difference I can see is that I’m armed with an automatic rifle instead of the assault rifle, and that I can choose to have a different load-out with differing abilities.

The abilities include camoflauge (which enabled me to blow up a tank that was destroying the shit out of our base), healing shield bubble thing, shield lock (which, for some reason, activates as you punch the ground), diversion (which creates a hologram of yourself that runs off and thus ‘diverts’ enemy fire) and a few others that I can’t remember but has no bearing on my point anyway.

The point of course being: Sprint is a special ability.

For some reason, these ‘supersoldiers’, these ‘Spartans’, can only sprint when given the added ability to. Other than that they do a particularly fast walk. What the hell? Sprinting is in EVERY good modern shooter, COD, Killzone, even that piece of crap MAG had the option of sprinting.

This might not have been so bad, if like in Unreal Tournament or Quake the map forced you reasonobly close together, but NO. I spent most of my first games in Halo running around giant maps just to find where the enemy base might be before getting killed and making the same two minute hike to getting where I needed to be to get killed, again and again. Maybe I’m just used to COD, where your enemies are never more than a 15 second sprint from wherever you are. Maybe I’m used to Unreal where the maps were a reasonable size, and if there was a larger map all I simply had to do was jump and cover an enormous distance to shorten the gap between myself and my target or simply run the normal speed which suited the gameplay and level environment.

Having said that, I find the game fun. It’s in no way ground-breaking or adrenaline inducing (like COD or Killzone or Unreal), but it’s fun. It’s the shooter you play to relax.

The campaign, on the other hand, is the first campaign in a shooter I have thoroughly enjoyed playing. To those who don’t know, I have never finished or really enjoyed a shooter’s campaign. I don’t see the point when multi-player is right there and is the real testament to your skills.

But playing the campaign, albeit with a friend, was enormously entertaining. We all know that games are better multi-player, but this was different. It was simultaneously competitive and co-operative, we had the joy of killing aliens (who were thankfully REAL aliens for once and not just the most unpopular race on earth at the time) and got to drive around in some fun-to-use vehicles.

But once again, the game isn't hugely exciting. It's like raiding a knitting club; you raid it when you feel like raiding but don't want to make a real commitment to the bloodshed (needles still hurt though).

The game itself is immaterial in this review, as everyone thinks it's fun and it got all these great reviews etc etc, BUT, what's being left out is this:

I have no video to put online.

Why? One reason is that I am too lazy to figure out how to do the whole recording with the wires and the usb and the Xbox and whatnot, and the other is that the game has an in-game recorder.

I thought, booyeh, I can regularly post any awesome kills I get. And there is a small chance I might be able to do this... as long as I buy a Bungie subscription.

What the fuck is wrong with Microsoft? I'm sick of their bullshit. Their Xbox didnt have wireless in it when released, which even the Wii had (despite it only having the power and of a Gen 1 gaming machine) and they then wanted you to buy an external wireless adaptor for 150 bucks. They then wanted you to pay extra to get online to then pay for services and games online.

Fuck you Microsoft, and fuck you Bungie. I recorded my game, I want to put it on my website. I'm not even sure if I could do it had I subscribed to the Bungie membership system, and I know that you could only view it had you also been a Bungie subscriber.

I dont understand the squeezing of the extra dollars. Halo is a massive franchise, they made 200 million in the first 24 hours for Reach. I just want to put the tank I blew up online, and that awesome headshot I scored against the guy driving on the opposite end of the battlefield (both true accounts).

The reason that Halo has sold so many copies and is so poluar is because it's suitable for a larger age group then COD or Killzone or such games. Why, just today there was some stupid kid from New Zealand refusing to shut the fuck up about him working at McDonalds and asking me if I wanted a big mac. That boy alone could kill New Zealands tourism industry which is the only thing keeping their economy going to begin with.

Halo is simultaneously a pain in my muscular Viking arse and a game that I would love to play if I had more friends on Xbox live.

I'm going to give it a 3 out of 5 and a mention that if a Spartan and a Viking got in a fight, the Spartan would be murdered so hard Greece would sink.

Til next time, the gamer with horns on his hat.

PS. If you didnt know the Viking Gamer got into the Game Informer, you do now. Seeing as this months Game Informer didn't have a new 'Next Big Critic' (amatuer writers section) I can only assume that my article was so great that no-one else thought they could live up to its standard and thus did not submit their feeble articles.

SHANK

After trying to play Dragon Age again, I decided that I'd rather place my horned hat in a field, steal a plane mid-flight, play anything by Miley Cyrus over the loud speakers at full volume with a church choir singing the words from Twilight, find the field, jump out of the plane and have my horned hat impale me. If this didn't kill me I would have repeated the process until it did.

So there will be no review of Dragon Age, but if you do want an impression of what I thought of it see above or go here.

However Odin and Playstation Plus were looking down on me that day, and my PS3 had downloaded an unlikely looking demo called 'SHANK'.

After finishing the first level, and LOVING it, I paid the twenty dollars to get the rest of the game. It ended up giving me about 5 or more hours of enjoyable game play, which is 5 more hours of enjoyable game play than Dragon Age gave me.

I had paid five times the amount of SHANK for Dragon Age. Shouldn't it logically be five times better? Five times more awesome? Five times less a waste of my life?

Sadly games do not follow a mathematical equation of price to excellence. Demon's Souls, for instance, was only 70 dollars as a new release. Not only did I give it an excellent score, I have bestowed upon it the honour of an involved replay. I say involved in italics because Vikings are a passionate people. If we did not feel strongly about our hats, culture, looting, maiming and pillaging, then we would simply be for-profit murderers in funny head gear. So I say involved, I mean involved. Priest in a child smuggling ring involved.

Onto Shank.



Shank has the same storyline as Kill Bill, in that he was betrayed by his gang-leader and his lover got killed by the gang made up of a variety of differently skilled individuals and they tried to kill him but he lived and they are SUPER SURPRISED to see him alive. Lots of killing ensues.

Even though I recently commented on originality and how it's lacking, I was surprised that I still thoroughly enjoyed the characters and plot development. Probably more surprised than the gang members were of finding out about shanks apparent good health (in that he was moving and breathing). The voice-acting was really good which I didn't expect from a game that was one fifth the price of the game that gave me the 'evil guy' voice. As well as that the dialogue and voices perfectly suiting the roles of their respective characters. Cliche, but well done. Like a steak. Bison steak, topped with a mushroom cream sauce. Served to me by a buxom waitress. But yes, voice-acting. And steak.

Game progression was a big part of what made the story enjoyable. For instance, some boss battles were at the start of the level and, in turn, introduced the types of enemies you would be versing next, rather than vice versa. If you don't understand that means I have to explain, and there was a good reason I turned down the chance to be Chair of Viking University. One is that I am not furniture, and never will be, and the second is that explaining is for mortals.

Here's an example anyway: if I'm in a level where the majority of my time is spent hacking the beaks off bird enemies then it is more than likely the boss of that particular level will be a giant bird. Like an albatross. Done in a rich peppercorn sauce on a pile of grilled eggplant. Served by a naked and buxom waitress. But yes, giant albatross, example and naked waitress.

This breaks up the games flow so that you don't settle into a routine of hack and slash, hack and slash, try to figure out how to beat the boss, beat the boss, FMV, hack and slash, hack and slash etc.

Another INGENIOUS method that's been used to break up the flow is the in game movies that appear at the top of the screen as you're still playing. It gives the impression that things are still in motion behind the scenes and that the big picture is being revealed at the same pace as you're playing it. So much passion, so many italics.

The game play defecates all over Dragon Age. It's smooth and quick and fun. Not press X and wait ten years for your character to bludgeon an enemy to death with a blade. Note, I've said bludgeon and blade in relation to one another. The only person I know that has successfully bludgeoned a person to death with a blade was me, and I was at least using the flat of the sword. And the victim in question had eaten my SANDWICH! (note the extra passion).

For starters, Shank has a great array of weaponry. Starting out with knives, a chainsaw and twin handguns, he moves onto using twin machetes, a shotgun, uzi, chains and a katana. Each of the weapons has their own range and fighting style and damage, and most importantly, their own individual animation for specialised kills.

Before I move onto the specialised kills, the great thing about this array of weaponry is that it's quick and simple to switch between them, which means you don't have to fuck around to deal with situations that require different weapons. If anyone remembers the difference between Devil May Cry 1 where you couldn't switch quickly and Devil May Cry 3 where you could, you'll remember the sense of freedom in dealing with different situations as well as the added enjoyment of breaking up what can quickly become a monotonous task of killing enemies in the same way.

The specialised ways of killing enemies are AWESOME. Against your regular enemies you can grapple them and then use any of the ten or so weapons to make them feel pain or feel dead (if dead is a feeling). The Katana is my favourite in this instance as the grapple leads to an assisted Hari Kiri (once again, I'm not furniture and very busy, use google for that one).

There is also the lunge, where Shank will leap halfway across the screen, pin an enemy down and proceed to stab their bodies until they become lifeless corpses with a Viking style efficiency.

Because the switching between weapons, attacks and different combos are so smooth, simple and above all, quick, this game feels incredibly fast-paced. And dying? Don't worry about it. Shank is one of the few games I have played that doesn't make dying as frustrating as polishing a dent out of your helmet. You die, you immediately start at your last checkpoint. No screen emphasising an already obvious fact that you lost, or asking you to re-load, or any other such time wasting crap.

This game also has something I haven't seen since Devil May Cry. He wields two handguns, so they've given him the ability to shoot in TWO DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS! Amazing! And if DMC and Shank can do it, WHY CAN'T YOU OTHER GAMES? IS IT SO HARD!?

The boss battles hold the only real problem I have with the game. While finding out how to beat the bosses is fun and challenging, some of the action sequences of damaging them are the same or very similar. In a game that's greatness lies in the fact that it manages to shake up regular routine, watching the same processes gets old more noticeably and much more quickly.

Shank is still an awesome game that's worth every dollar of the twenty you'll spend to get it off the Playstation Store. I give it 4 Shanks out of 5 kidneys.


Til next time, the gamer with horns in his hat (and videos in his blog).

THE VIKING GIVES HIS THANKS

Console Wars: A Viking Knows Best

The thing I hate most about gaming is the 'Console wars'. I can deal with morons online, shitty games, glitches, updates, downloading times...

BUT

The console wars has now started to actually have an affect on my gaming life. It's not even a real WAR for Odin's sake, no bloodshed, no crying peasants and no axes.

How did it begin? Well the true beginning of the console wars was not between Nintendo and Sony and Sega. That's more of a debate between idealists.

The real war is now. The Ps3 and the Xbox 360 are the main competitors, both strong and virile, not good enough to be Viking material, but alright just the same.

Why only these two? Well the Wii, for all its 'amazing technology', is a joke console. It's for families, children who smell and don't know any better and for the elderly who smell because they want to. It costs three hundred dollars and has about 3 games worth buying if you're a gamer and about 1000 crappy games for the parents trying to fit in, unhygenic children or someones grandpa who craps his pants for a laugh.

The handhelds? Despite being a people constantly on the move and the amazing technology in these gadgets the general opinion of these machines is 'meh'. And, once again, Nintendo has appealed to the families and reeking children (and not so much the soiled geriatric grandparents) with the Nintendo DS, which has 0 games worth buying.

So back to the contenders and why it really is a war now and why it wasn't a war before (Italics=smart Viking).

Before, in the gaming days of old, you had a choice to make between the Nintendo 64 or the Playstation...or even the Dreamcast. The different systems had a wide and varied amount of games that suited a particular niche. The Playstation (ps one as it was later dubbed) was my first console. I remember the man trying to steer me towards the 64 as he said it had more 'kiddy friendly games' and the playstation was for more serious gamers. I also remember he was the 133rd person whose legs I had cut off for patronising me.

The arrival of the Xbox and the Ps2 completely overshadowed the game-cube (pffffft-I even used lower case to name it), and, once again, there were different games to think about when considering purchasing one or the other.

Then came 3rd gen, or the beginning of the real 'Console wars'. It was no longer Ps3 vs Xbox 360, it was Microsoft vs Sony. Business wise, it's too costly to try for originality and fail when the stakes are this high and this close.

So now games are very rarely exclusive. I bought (stole) an Xbox 360 from a vendor (peasant) after paying (slaying) them. Unfortunately it hasn't done much in the way of providing me anything new. Do you know how many games (worth buying) you can get on the Xbox 360 you can't get on the Ps3?

The answer is:

4.

Mass Effect (1&2, I included them in on choice)
Fable (all Fables)
Halo
Splinter Cell Conviction

While the Ps3's claims to fame have been:

Unchartered (1&2)
Folklore
Demon's Souls
And something else I can't quite remember or find in my hut.
(Update) Oh yeah it was Heavy Rain

So roughly 8 games separate the two systems. Choice my perfect Viking arse.

HOWEVER

These games I've mentioned are really, really good. So that is a point in favour for the console wars.

BUT MINUS A GAJILLION (Viking number for 'lots') POINTS FOR MAKING ME RESEARCH WHAT SYSTEM TO GET A GAME FOR.

Sometimes I dream about smashing my Ps3 and my 360 with my axe, and all the pieces come together to make a super-machine called the PSexbox, the nirvana of consoles. This dream has only been slightly achieved by Ianardo when he humped my new xbox. I congratulated his efforts and then got him to clean up.

I dont really want to talk specs because I dont understand them. I graduated from Viking University (VU) in literature, grammatology and General Viking Awesomeness. If I said I was an ITV (Information Technology Viking) I would be truly slaying your grandmother.

I can tell you about first-hand experience though.

Between the Ps3 and the 360, I think they both have great graphics. If I ABSOLUTELY HAD to choose which one was better I'd say the Ps3. Even then I wouldn't say it was superior, just slightly better.

The general layout for the Ps3 is much, much better. Simple, stylish, easy. Like a call-girl. The 360 is incredibly patronising. I don't want to choose an avatar (which is a complete rip-off of the Mii on the Wii). Mine looks like someone I'd kill just for looking how they do. I also don't want to have to scroll through 8 different selection bars that are the same colour as acidic vomit.

The DVD set up (including the fact it plays Blu-ray DVD) for the Ps3 is far, far superior to the 360, as the controller ACTUALLY WORKS LIKE A REMOTE. I get a bit passionate about this because I like to relax to the series 'Vikings Abroad' where Vikings get to sail around and meet interesting people before setting their homes ablaze. So when I'm trying to watch it on my 360 and every button brings up the same useless 'control bar' I can't fully appreciate the beauty of cultural diversity and how everyone, regardless of race, age and smell comes together when a Viking ruins their shit.

The 360 definitely has a faster d/l rate, which is appealing to me as I am often busy raiding, and when my system has to update that cuts into my gaming time which makes me an angry Viking.

AND NOW THE MOST IMPORTANT THING:

The controllers.

I believe Microsoft, having modelled their original Xbox controller to be the size and shape of my left nut (about the size of a basketball and the weight of a diabetic chicken) decided to do some research. Any god damn they did well. The 360 controller is a beautiful weight. It was made to be held. On the downside it runs on batteries, but that doesn't bother me so much.

The Ps3 controller, however, has six-axis technology. While it is awesome, its disuse is almost criminal. For the game Folklore (buy it) it was pure brilliance. For Uncharted, it was so damn right. For Heavy Rain, revolutionary. But now its just unused, which makes me a sad Viking.

I do prefer the Ps3, but all the console war is really doing is splitting gamers apart, and the only splitting apart of a gamer should be done by a professional. Me.

I'm giving the console wars 2/5, because between those 8 games there was some fantastic gaming to be had.

Til next time, the gamer with horns on his hat.