Wednesday 24 March 2010

Woe is me

Just in the progess of selling my entire US Snes/Japanese Super Famicom collection :(

Really could use the money and they are just sat on the shelf at the moment, like £500 worth of ornaments

Now it's going to be emulation ftw i guess....

Friday 19 March 2010

Now Playing:
















Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (Cube)



(A superb little game)

Mass Effect 2 (360)












The first Mass Effect was a wonderful title and is one of my personal favourite 360 titles, it wasn't without issues however - the framerate and clunky combat are the two most championed when people are sticking the boot in but for me i just found it a little lightweight compared to the scope of the other classic Bioware Star Wars title Knights Of The Old Republic.

I'm happy to say that Mass Effect 2 improves on the original in every single way, they story is darker and much more appealing - the same can also be said for the new characters that it introduces to the storyline, particularly the new antagonists who are far more intimidating than the Geth ever were in Mass Effect.













There are also no technical issues this time around and the combat has been tweaked to offer an experience that feels more like a proper 3rd person shooter rather than a RPG with shooter bits tacked on.

The level of content available to players has been dramatically increased with plenty of side quests for you to get your teeth into should you be that way inclined. I managed to get 35 hours out of my first playthrough which is certainly more meaty than the first game.












The only negative i can think of is that the soundtrack has been made a bit more mainstream and loses much of the wonderful electronica which made the first games soundtrack so wonderful. Richard Jaques isn't involved in the soundtrack this time either.

A great game and the best i've played so far this year.

Policenauts (PSX)















Being a massive fan of both Snatcher and Hideo Kojima games in general i have been waiting for years for the fan translation of Policenauts to be finished. I never thought it would actually be done but last autumn it was finished meaning the english speaking world got to understand what the hell was going on in this game for the first time!

The game itself plays very similar to Snatcher, apart from the shooting sections are alot harder and the game itself is much greater in length overall.














Policenauts does weave a very captivating story, as is the case with all of Kojima's titles. Both this and Snatcher however are free from alot of the complex overly complicated plot advances that the Metal Gear games suffer from.

Whereas Snatcher was pretty much a direct homage to the film Blade Runner, Policenauts is in all respects the same to the Lethal Weapon series and similiar detective buddy films of the 80's and 90's.
Due to this the plot is slightly predictable in places but yet still very gripping.


Again a trait of Hideo Kojima games Policenauts sports a superb soundtrack and it's fantastic main theme will be instantly recognisable to anyone who has played the first Metal Gear Solid game as it's opening bars also feature in the opening to that game (it also can be found and played on the Ipod in MGS4

Have a listen here if you want to know what i mean

Super game and it's a pity the superior Sega Saturn version with light gun support didn't get released in the west as was originally planned along with many other lost Saturn classics