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I’ve never really understood people’s fascination with zombies. I think that some of that is down to my complete disinterest in the horror genre. I’ve just never been one for blood, guts and scary movies. As a result I’ve missed out on all the “classic” zombie films, such as Dawn of the Dead.

Of course, to be cool, these days you don’t call them zombies… they’re “infected”. They’re not the dead, come back to life, they’re victims of some disease or experiment. Is it just me… or is that just not quite as scary?

Despite my complete ambivalence towards the brain-munching hoards, I’ve somehow found myself playing three zombie games this past month… Read the rest of this entry »

In many ways, Prince of Persia should’ve been the perfect game for me. I like 3D platforming games like Tomb Raider but I don’t like the fact that I’m a little bit rubbish at them, die a lot and have to reload all the time.

Prince of Persia does away with constant deaths and tedious reloading. The prince’s trusty companion, Elika, tirelessly swoops you up to safety every time you drop off a ledge or become endangered by an enemy.

People have argued that it’s this lack of challenge that makes Prince of Persia such a dull, boring and monotonous experience. I disagree. I don’t mind easy games. The reason I’m finding it so dull and boring is simply because I honestly don’t care about the story and these two characters. Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, I don’t have a long console history. All my early gaming experiences were on home computers. My first actual console (if you’re not counting the old “pong” machines) was the PS2. I thought, therefore, that it might be interesting to pick up the Sega Megadrive Ultimate Collection to see what everyone else was playing in the early nineties.

It’s certainly a good value collection, especially when you factor in the cost of some of the titles that have already been released separately on the XBLM. Yes, there are some duds on the compilation but with 42 games you’re bound to find more than a few gems to justify the purchase. There are certainly a lot of side scrolling beat ‘em ‘ups on the disc, like the Streets of Rage games and Shinobi III, which take me back to days spent in arcades as a youth. Read the rest of this entry »

I used to regularly blog about the games I’d been playing and also on my Gamerscore progress. However, as my last update was on July 13th last year it’s obvious I’ve not exactly been keeping up with things. I’ve even failed to record significant personal gaming events… such as passing the 40,000 Gamerscore mark and the purchase of a PS3!

In an effort to get a regular weekly-ish “what I’ve been playing” gaming post established again I’m going to briefly discuss some of the titles that have been in my consoles this past fortnight. I don’t expect that these posts will be of much interest to general visitors to this blog but they are quite nice for me to look back on. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been a bit lax in recording my Gamerscore progress on the blog. Not that it matters because, after all, it’s done completely for my own benefit. I don’t expect anyone else to be interested in where my latest achievements have come from!

Part of the reason I’ve not posted about things is that I’ve actually covered most of the games I’ve been playing in the reviews I’ve been writing for the Cranky Gamers UK blog.

I suppose I could come up with a few words about some of the other games I’ve been playing recently.

Unreal Tournament 3 has been in my disc tray a lot. It instantly brought back memories of all the time I used to spend playing the different versions of Unreal Tournament on the PC. The console version, Unreal Championship, was also one of the few games I used to regularly play on the original Xbox’s Live service.

I’ve just finished the campaign which is merely a collection of bot matches arranged into “chapters” with a few cut-scenes in between. The storyline is a complete load of twaddle, taking a more Gears of War route rather than the tournament theme of the previous games.

I’m going to be doing a full review on the game soon. There’s basically nothing wrong with it. It’s simply Unreal Tournament on the Xbox 360. The only thing is, if you’re a real Unreal Tournament fan then surely you’ll either be playing it on the PC or the PS3… both of which fully support the user created mods that have made the series such a success.

Price Caspian is another title that’s in my current stack of games. I’ve only had an evening’s play of this so far. The developers seem to have wanted to mix the button mashing action of the Lord of the Rings film games with the character swapping of Lego Star Wars. I’m not sure how successful they’ve been. I’ll be going back to this one once I finish reviewing Unreal Tournament.

The last achievement producing game, that I’ve not already reviewed, is Beijing 2008.

I actually think that the control schemes for most of the games are extremely well thought out. I love the diving and the shooting. Many of the gymnastic events are a lot like rhythm games. The field events, although they need a lot of practise, actually work really well. The only event I truly didn’t like was the judo. The ultimate problem with the game is the reliance on button bashing for about half the levels, mostly the swimming and running. It really stopped me enjoying the game.

It’s not Sega’s fault particularly. I just don’t find the Xbox 360 controller, with its shiny rounded buttons and the concave dimpled analogue sticks, comfortable to use in the way required to be competitive. It just isn’t designed for the amount of button mashing (or joystick waggling) that’s required. If you’ve got an arcade stick of some kind then I reckon you’ll enjoy the game a lot more. Maybe this is one of those rare titles that I should’ve picked up for the Wii?

Had the achievements been a little more… er… achievable (sometimes breaking the Olympic record isn’t enough to unlock one!) then I might have been encouraged to spend more time on the game. As it it’s been traded in towards my PS3 fund.

Beijing 2008 is extremely good value if you like these sort of games. It’ll be interesting to see what the rival game, Summer Olympics, will be like. The achievements look more obtainable at least.