“Cho Jiku Yosai Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie” (aka “Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie”) is a sequel game based on the 1984 movie “Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love?”… man I love these absurdly long titles lol. It was released on the Super Famicom in 1993 and is a classic side-scrolling shmup (shoot ‘em up) comparable to games such as Gradius and R-Type. Of course, Scrambled Valkyrie does add its share of unique Macross charm to the mix…

As you begin the game, you’re given the choice between playing one of three characters: Hikaru Ichijo, Maximilian Jenius and Milia Fallyna Jenius. Each character has their own set of weapons which can be upgraded with power-ups as you progress through the game. In addition to that, your Valkyrie can transform between three modes: Fighter, GERWALK and Battroid. Each mode has their own weapon set that can be upgraded and downgraded independently. For example, if you are in Battroid mode and gain a power-up, the Battroid mode weapons will be upgraded to level 2 however the Fighter and GERWALK mode weapons will remain at level 1. Your Valkyrie can take a bit of beating, the health bar in the top left will indicate how much damage you can take before being destroyed. Take enough damage, however and you are in risk of losing a power-up level for your current mode.

The amount of options and power-ups gained in Scrambled Valkyrie makes for some interesting gameplay when trying out the game with all three characters and switching between the three different modes when necessary. Oh, and another interesting factor about the three modes is that you will notice that there is a distinct speed and manoeuvrability difference to go along with the different weapon sets that add another level of tactical gameplay to the mix… in fact, I love how well thought out it really is and how interesting it makes things.

Oh, but there’s also another factor that’s added into the mix that makes this an even more interesting experience than you thought possible. Normally with these kinds of games you hold down the fire button and destroy everything on the screen, however if you let go of the fire button your Valkyrie starts to glow… this glow happens to be “song energy” (Yahk, deculture!) produced by your new type of Valkyrie which you can use to turn your enemies into your allies. Smaller enemies are easy enough to turn over, simply wait till your Valkyrie is glowing and then fly into them to make them switch to your side. Once this is done the enemy craft will have a yellowish glow and will fly around your Valkyrie, shooting at enemy craft if they have that ability. This sounds all good, but certain larger and more dangerous enemies need to be damaged enough before you can make them defect. Of course you can only have one ally at a time and if you get another enemy to defect the one you had previously will fly away. Again, skilled players will be able to use this to their advantage by managing to turn powerful enemy ships over to their side.

Gameplay is awesome, it’s also a very good looking game… though it has some horrendously bad Engrish that will make you go “Wait, what?”… as you can tell by the screenshot. The only way to play Scrambled Valkyrie these days is if you have a SNES emulator on your PC and can find the ROM for it… I do happen to have a ROM of the game in my possession… maybe I’ll let you have a copy…

• Download Super Dimension Fortress: Scrambled Valkyrie (For members only)

…everyone needs more Macross.

There’s nothing much going on under the sea, just a whole lot of salt water and a whole lot of sea life… and then there’s that underwater utopian society of Rapture, a haven for the working man to make his living, the artist to express himself and the Big Daddies to protect their Little Sisters. Too bad things went oh so terribly wrong…

When you think of a first person shooter, most people think of a game based around some kind of war where most of the gameplay is channelled into the multiplayer elements rather than the story. Few first person shooters bother to break away from that mould, but when they do I tend to take notice, which is why I have much praise for games like Half-Life and BioShock.

BioShock

Some people may find this strange, but what really got me into BioShock are the similarities I discovered between the mechanics of the game and the mechanics of Metroid Prime. There’s plenty of good back tracking thanks to its non-linear level design as well as areas only accessible once you get certain items or go through certain events. There are also logs to collect that will explain the background elements of the story in more detail. Hell, you can even “scan” enemies to learn of their weaknesses by taking pictures of them with a camera. It even has the feeling of isolation and a great atmosphere, with you against the rest of Rapture, even though there are plenty of supporting characters interacting with you every step of the way… I felt right at home.

As you progress through Rapture, you get a real sense of history to the place and it really does feel like it’s been lived in… Though to be honest, I kind of wonder if any of the pastries you eat to replenish health are actually safe to eat in the first place.

Unlike Metroid Prime, however, BioShock is a much more brutal game in many ways. A perfect example of this brutality can be expressed with your trust wrench. Large, heavy and covered in blood… perfectly suited to stalking down your prey from behind and… Damn, the sound it makes when it hits… *shudders* The way the Big Daddies operate is pretty similar and it’s a real treat to watch them in action. I remember moments in the game where I would try to get Splicers to accidentally attack a Big Daddy in the area when they were trying to attack me. I’d let Big Daddy lose his temper and watch as the blood splattered across the walls… great fun.

When the game came to its brilliant finish, I thought it would be a one off game of its own with no need for a sequel…

BioShock 2

A sequel may not have been needed, but a hell of a lot of people sure wanted it when it was announced. After playing through the first and then heading into the second, there’s not much that can really surprise you considering you’re familiar with the world you’re plunging into. You’re back and Rapture with the familiar sights and sounds, though some time has passed, the same pastries that were eaten in the first game can be eaten in the second… they surely must have rotted away by now, urk.

I haven’t really bothered to go through the multiplayer side of things with BioShock 2 since I’ve been too busy with other things, but a lot of gameplay improvements were made over the first game, though these were mostly relating to the ability to do more things at once with your plasmid powers and weapons being more accessible. The fact that you play as a Big Daddy also changed a few things but overall it’s still the same old BioShock you knew from the first game.

By the end of the game, which also ends brilliantly, it seemed pretty obvious that 2K Games was using BioShock as a springboard to launch an entire series of games. Expect to see a BioShock 3 and more… Rapture was just the beginning… and I don’t mind more BioShock, just as long as the sequels are as good as these two games are.

As many of you in the community already know, I recently bought myself a Sony Vaio P netbook… so, naturally, just like everyone else I installed all of the usual programs and set it up the way I like it and have my perty wallpaper and everything all there. Along with those other things, I came to a point where I eventually put ZSNES onto it. The main reason I did this, was so I could have a portable copy of Super Metroid.

But then I stopped for a moment and suddenly asked myself. I do own a copy of Super Metroid of Wii Virtual Console, but does that make it right for me to download a ROM version of it and put it on my Vaio P?

Personally, I like to buy everything and try to stay away from piracy as much as I can. After all, these games are made by some talented people and this industry, as flawed as it may be in certain areas, is an industry I want to support… but there can be some grey areas of morality we get into when it comes to the subject of piracy.

I DON’T own a copy of the original SNES version of Super Metroid, I DO own the Wii VC version, but am I in the wrong for having the ROM version in my possession and playing it on my Vaio P? I mean, it’s not like Nintendo has lost any money from me having the ROM on my PC… and funnily enough, this line of thinking can be used to actually justify piracy for a lot of people. If I call up some guy over at Nintendo and go “I own a copy of Super Metroid on Wii VC but I have a copy of the ROM on my PC, what do I do?!” he’ll just be like “Okay… I don’t care.” and hang up.

It’s a grey area, but for me, it’s okay to have this ROM copy of Super Metroid since I already have the Wii VC version… but then I ask myself… what about that ROM copy of Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie? I don’t own a physical SNES cart of that and it’s unavailable to download from Wii VC. In fact, it’s unavailable outside of Japan altogether, but thanks to the Internet, I was able to download it and experience its awesomeness.

Just because it’s not available in my country, does that mean I have free reign to just download it and play it without paying for it? It’s not like I can do much about it… My reasoning is that it’s a very old game that you can’t get anywhere any more, so having the ROM of it is no big deal. Of course, that takes me further down the rabbit hole in terms of justifying my actions.

I’m sure I could go even further if I followed the thought, so where would I stop? I stand firm on not pirating new games, and if there is a version of an older game that’s available on Wii VC, PlayStation Network or Xbox Live Arcade, I’d definitely go for those rather than pirating them. I’m fine with people modding their consoles as much as they want just as long as they don’t use it for the sake of piracy.

I guess it’s more of a case of personal morality than anything else… Anyway, you’ve heard my thoughts about this, so where does everyone else fall on this issue? Or is it really not that big a deal and I’m just over-thinking this? Let’s hear your thoughts.

Oh, and for those of you wondering where the whole “You wouldn’t download a car” thing came from… take a look.

That VERY annoying clip used to be at the very start of most DVDs sold down here in Australia. I was able to skip it on my DVD player back in the day, but there were some DVD players which wouldn’t let you so you either had to endure it or be smart enough to realise you could fast forward through it. Obviously it never says “You wouldn’t download a car” in the clip itself, that is just another one of the many Internet jokes out there for the lulz.

That clip in no longer added to newly released DVDs and they never appeared on BDs to begin with. Not sure what they have now but hopefully it’s not as annoying as that one.

This entire entry will be extremely spoilerific because I really HAVE to share with you just how ridiculous this game really is. It’s so bad that the President of Nintendo of America, Reginald “Reggie” Fils-Aimé, stated that this game would NEVER make it to North America… lucky for me, the wacky folks of Nintendo of Europe and Nintendo of Australia decided that “If the American’s don’t want it, we certainly must have it!”… So here it is… read about it, because you’re not going to want to play it.

The game follows Raymond Bryce, an International Rescue worker and apparently a former US Marine (to explain why Ray is such a weapons expert, I guess). During a volcanic eruption, Ray is doing his thing but ends up losing his friend, Steve, who is also a rescue worker. Ray can’t forgive himself for his friends loss since he feels the need to save everyone but ultimately doesn’t have the power to… deep, man… deep.

So anyway, during this part of the game you go through the usual tutorial stuff: Learn how to walk and run and how to jump, how to breathe, because that’s important, and also how to punch boulders and rocks. Yes, folks, punching boulders isn’t just for a steroid abused Chris Redfield. Not only that, I learned that you can also punch and kick barrels and wooden crates as well as mailboxes, trash bins and also cardboard boxes that happen to be laying around too.

Flash forward a year and Ray is a public servant for Blue Ridge City, and for whatever reason he meets an FBI agent who tells him about some military group who has stolen nukes and is threatening the government and all that kinda jazz… sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it. Then for some reason this chick, who happens to be the sister of his friend, Steve, gets kidnapped by this group, and Ray who feels guilty about Steve’s death goes after her and this military group to save her… and that’s pretty much the entire plot right there. Ray feels guilty, chick gets kidnapped, Ray wants to save her but at the same time is told to stop this group from blowing up some random city and do all of this while facing a string of natural disasters…

So anyway, Ray is going to save this chick… AND THEN SUDDENLY AN EARTHQUAKE! Buildings are crumbling, people are FREAKING OUT, and for some reason I start getting into a gunfight with all these military dudes… then after I think I’m close to saving that chick, they escape with her and some other guy and I have to go after them.

Now, I’m in the city which is crumbling around me still, buildings falling over, and there are people who need help. Some of these people happen to call for your help, though only if it’s a plot element, others are people you have to find and save yourself… of course, if there’s no one around and you press the Z button to look for people, Ray will say “There’s no one who needs saving here” in an extremely disappointing tone, as if he wants people to be injured and in need of his help. Great guy, that Ray…

Oh, and also, I did mention the ability to punch and kick open stuff, but I didn’t mention the fact that when you do, you’ll find items! I know, you’re thinking “Well, what’s so different about that? That’s practically in every game.”… Well, yes and no. Here are a couple of examples… You see a mailbox, and you decide to punch it open, it explodes open after a few punches and then you find that it drops a big hunk of meat on the bone, cooked to perfection… Okay, so this seems a bit strange… who put that succulent oversized piece of cooked meat in the mailbox? Ray doesn’t care, because he’ll pick it up from the ground and eat it right then and there to regain his stamina.

Of course, all through this you’re still going after that military group to save that one chick… and for whatever reason that military group has a fuck tonne of guys who happen to be all gunning for you. I don’t know how many guys I’ve killed in this game, but I’ve taken out a small army as well as various kinds of vehicles including a couple of choppers… and something else I’ll get to at the end of this entry… anyway, I’m chasing after these guys and end up going through a pretty awesome car chase scene. Hands down the driving element of this game is its best feature, but is ruined by having to deal with all the disasters along the way… one of the disasters being, no, not a regular tornado, but a FIRE tornado!… yeah, I don’t get it either, but whatever man…

So, first came the earthquake and as a result there’s a tsunami heading towards the city… so naturally Ray and the military dudes decide to have a shoot out on the bridge as the tsunami is heading towards them. This guy has balls man, a tsunami doesn’t even scare him cause he feels he has time to be Rambo…

Anyway, after he kills everyone he decides that now is a good time to leave just as the tsunami is just about to hit. Ray gets in his car and drives away from certain death at full speed. The driving in this part is a bit different though, in previous driving areas you would drive the car in first person mode, but in this instance the camera is on the outside and is facing back at the tsunami with the car on screen. The bridge is falling apart as you escape and you’re struggling to stay ahead of it and onto solid ground. Then he goes into a subway system and ends up having to outrun a rush of water in there… and then ANOTHER TSUNAMI decides to come on down and Ray, as the bad ass he is decides he’ll outrun the tsunami ON FOOT. ON FOOT! *stares at you*… and he fails, lol. Ray gets swept away and the military dudes happen to escape too.

Stuff happens and Ray ends up following the military dudes to some mines near a Volcano, and surprise, surprise, the Volcano decides to erupt. Ray is dodging huge fiery boulders raining down from the sky, tries to save the chick again, fails and the military dudes escape. Ray then has to get the hell out of there and decides to drive out of there while the lava is flowing and the pyroclastic flow that is coming down the mountain is bearing down on him… of course, like before, Ray fails and gets caught in it… and survives. When he wakes up some little girl has saved him and then he decides to get the little girl to safety and they travel through the mountain to safety… oh, and you get to kill a bear.

Ray gets out of there with the little girl, and then he’s off to some other place that just happens to be flooded due to a hurricane that’s bearing down on it. He’s going after that military group cause he has to save that chick and he military group who is too stupid to realise that the only reason all of their guys are dying is because of their hostage… WHICH THEY DON’T EVEN NEED ANY MORE, is still holding her and taunting Ray as he shoots them all down.

Oh yeah, another thing about punching open stuff is that you have to be careful. Sometimes, instead of getting an item from the container, you suddenly get set on fire. There I was punching a trash bin open in a flooded area with some pretty heavy rain coming down, and suddenly I’m on fire, even though I’m knee deep in water and completely drenched. Well whatever, during this flooded level I happen to end up saving that chick, only to have her re-kidnapped again which is another kick in the nuts.

So we’re coming near the end of it, I’m chasing these guys in my car for the last time through a full force hurricane and they get on a ferry to… I have no idea. Anyway, I’m on a ferry now and it’s the last part of the game. I’ve been through an earthquake, a fire tornado, a couple of tsunami as well as two volcanos, then a flood and a hurricane… so now what?

Now we have the final boss fight, of course! For some reason as Ray is talking to the last guy, it reminds me of the final boss fight on the deck of the ship in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune… but then all of a sudden the bad guy is standing next to something that’s covered…Now I’m thinking this guy is going to come after me on the deck of this ferry with a freaking TANK. But no, that’s not what he had in mind… instead…

METAL GEAR?!!!!!!?!!??!?!!!!?!?!?1//1?#2131342pir5thy34eoftaguhlokdhg!!!!!!!1

I kid you not, this guy was in a poor man’s Metal Gear Rex. It was Rex vs Ray! And it didn’t stop there! After defeating pseudo-Rex, I fought the boss one on one, man to man… in a quick time fight scene that reminded me of a poor man’s version of the knife fight in Resident Evil 4… though most of the fight didn’t feature any knives… oh and then I got to disarm a nuke which was fun and lived happily ever after…. OR DID THEY?

At the end of the game you get to view an alternate ending. All of those Disasters that Ray has faced during that 24 hour period is nothing compared to what’s about to hit the planet…. AN ASTEROID!

AN ASTEROID IS HEADING TOWARDS THE PLANET! ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO PUNCH AND KICK IT INTO A SAFE TRAJECTORY?

I loled.

Okay so that was a pretty huge entry for a game that doesn’t matter… so if you couldn’t be bothered reading all of that, at least watch this… it pretty much sums it all up.

…Epic, truly epic. I’m so glad I bought this game and played it all the way through, just so I could tell everyone else about it. As I said at the start… it’s so bad that it’s good.

Ubisoft knew that they had something special brewing with Assassin’s Creed, and anyone who has played the game will know first hand that they have set it up to be a trilogy or possibly a long running series. But not even Ubisoft themselves were prepared for the high sales that the first game saw. Their efforts had struck an extremely good nerve with gamers, and their surprise is very understandable too since the first game of a new IP never does anywhere near as well as Assassin’s Creed did.

Even better than that, Assassin’s Creed II blew everyone away, from reviewers to the gamers themselves. I know I was blown away by the improvements they made and… some other things…

I had played a few hours of Assassin’s Creed when it was first released and liked what I played, but I hadn’t actually finished the first game until very recently. In fact, I got to experience both games in a very interesting way. Over the Christmas weekend, I happened to play Assassin’s Creed and Assassin’s Creed II back to back in one big epic marathon run. I finished the first game for the first time and got to start the second then and there… those who have started the second game know how PERFECT that situation is, though the transition from the first game to the second was a pretty big hit in terms of the visuals.

Minor spoilers ahead…

The very first second of Assassin’s Creed II takes place the very second after the credits roll for the first game. It was a bit of a shock to the system when the room you were looking at in the first game and the characters suddenly look so different because of the upgraded visuals and effects… even more so when you have just finished the first game and immediately started the second. It would’ve been nice if Ubisoft had have kept the visual style of the first game exactly the same way how it was for the first game in that one area you were familiar with, then did a cowboy switch when you escape from the building and are in those darker corridors… but that’s just me.

/ End spoilers.

Anyway, let’s have a look at the two games separately…

Assassin’s Creed

When you start Assassin’s Creed, you don’t really know where it will lead you. Despite what many people saw in the promotional material and trailers of a medieval environment, you find yourself in a near present day setting playing as Desmond Miles, a seemingly average guy who has been abducted by members of a global corporation. The events that you see in those trailers are experienced by Desmond using the Animus, a device that essentially allows a user to go back in time and experience moments of their own ancestor’s life through memories recorded in their own genes.

Desmond finds himself in the memories of Altaïr, a member of the Order of Assassins at around 1191AD. The events of his ancestor’s life are slowly revealed to him as well as the realisation of who his abductors are and what they are searching for.

An intriguing concept… it certainly made me want to find out where it was all going to lead…

Once you master it, the gameplay for Assassin’s Creed is a pleasure everyone must experience. When you first play you’ll be unsure of yourself and attempt to over compensate for many of the actions you’re trying to perform. The key is to let yourself go and trust that you’ll be able to do all of the amazing things you’re seeing happening on screen. Once you do, you’ll find that you’ll be running across rooftops at great speed, outwitting guards and climbing towers with great ease.

The environments and general presentation is well done and there’s much to do in the game with plenty of exploration. The game itself is set in a way that allows you to do as much as you want or as little as you want depending on how much you enjoy collection-fests or not. I personally loved climbing up every building I could find and finding the highest places in each area… though, personally I couldn’t care less about collecting all of those various different flags. But don’t worry, collecting stuff isn’t really that important to the main story of the game, it’s just really there for those who like to explore game environments in their own time.

Most players will happily stick with the main story as I did, which is fine, even if the game gets you to do practically the same thing over and over, if you’re clever you can figure out ways of doing things differently. I think that’s really the key to the game, it’s easy just to pull out a sword and start carving up your enemies, but it’s more fun to act as a true assassin, stalk your target and kill them without anyone realising you were even there… those moments are made of pure awesomeness if you’re prepared to go through the work to pull them off.

Ubisoft has put together a nicely polished game, though it does suffer from some very obvious and sometimes frequent AI glitches. I’m sure if you searched through YouTube, you’d be able to find plenty of videos of some of the funnier/stupid AI glitches that occur during the game.

One of my own experiences in the game was when the guards protecting the target I was meant to assassinate suddenly decided that they would try to kill the target themselves for absolutely no reason. Of course, what followed was just a confusing mess. My target would jump from place to place trying to avoid the strikes of the guards and the guards would follow him, jumping around the room… this occurred for awhile until I realised that no one would catch up with each other and it would just keep on going endlessly… so I attacked a guard and they all turned their attention on me… finally.

Despite that, the game is a must play… and if you’ve played the first, you MUST play the second…

Assassin’s Creed II

After their success with the first game, Ubisoft had a lot to prove with Assassin’s Creed II. The first one took people by surprise at the amount of quality this new IP had, the second one had better follow suit or heads would roll. From what I’ve been hearing on the net, people are very pleased with the second game and the review scores seem to favour it above the first.

The second game continues on directly where the first left off and without going into too much detail and spoiling things, Desmond is going to find that he’s going to end up playing a much bigger role in the events to shape the future. To that end, he needs to be trained as a true assassin. To achieve this he will learn from the beginning as his Italian ancestor, Ezio, had learned.

Of course, just like the first game, there’s more to it than just that, and you’ll get to find out just how deep the rabbit hole goes the further along in the story you get.

Gameplay has certainly been improved in this second coming of Assassin’s Creed. I particularly like how streamlined things have gotten and that all of the good aspects are still intact. Free-running and climbing have been greatly improved, even though they were pretty slick in the first game to begin with. I didn’t notice any really stupid AI glitches plaguing this game like I did with the first which is a big plus. One of the best additions I love though is the ability to hide among the regular people as just another face in the crowd… even though you’re wearing flowing robes and some pretty decorative armour lol. Oh, and the chicks are great *winks*…

The different weapons and the ability to buy and upgrade and also to use your enemies weapons is a nice feature, though doesn’t seem to have that big an effect on overall gameplay to make things seem strategic. Either way, I like the effort that has been put into the customisation options for Ezio. Though, when it comes right down to it, once you get that special someone’s armour, there’s no looking back.

I did find that there was a bit of a down side with fetch quests integrated directly into the main story. It gets a little annoying having to carry stuff back and forth and act as a courier… but overall, this isn’t a big deal unless you’re just impatient and want to kill things right away.

Minor spoilers ahead…

I did mention that the first game had some pretty interesting things in it, but Assassin’s Creed II takes the cake when it comes to complete mindfucks… for this series and probably for 99% of other games out there. I mean, going into the series, you know it’s not going to be your average stab and slaughter your enemies type thing. Ubi decided they’d try and screw with your head too… which is always fun.

/ End of spoilers.

I do have one problem with the release of this game though… I hate how they release different versions of the damn thing. What I hate even more is that people who don’t buy those extra special versions end up missing out on some extra stuff, as unimportant as they may be, it’s the principle of the matter.

Either way, I can’t wait for the next instalment of this trilogy or series depending on how far they want to take it. Anyone who has played it knows it’s got the potential to go into some pretty wild and out there places…

2009 has been an awesome year for me. Back in 2008 I managed to get a PS3 for free and also bought a 360 elite during end of 2008. This meant that going into 2009 I had access to a DS, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 (if you only count the current generation line-up). This meant that I had a lot of opportunity to play a hell of a lot of different kinds of video games.

From the very beginning of the year I was enjoying the last game in the Phoenix Wright arc of the Ace Attorney series and was also getting ready for some co-op action on Resident Evil 5 with Jeff. I also had a hell of a lot of fun with my Wii this year despite the fact that it has been a pretty quiet year for the console. Most people are pretty disappointed with Wii in 2009, which is pretty understandable considering some of the games released for the console this year… but there were a couple of gems in there that people should never have ignored or overlooked as they did.

A prime example of that would be House of the Dead: Overkill. For shame to anyone who hasn’t bought that game because it’s hilariously disturbing/funny. Also, even more shame on the people who didn’t buy Metroid Prime Trilogy. I bought TWO copies of that game. The Australian version and the US version. Why would I do such a thing? Just so I could get that awesome steel book case which only the folks in the US got… yes, I’m THAT much of a fan to go that far.

Lastly, I don’t need to even mention New Super Mario Bros. here considering that if you have a Wii and don’t own that game then you may as well stamp an “Idiot” print on your forehead.

Wii had its moments, but the hands down winner this year for me was the Xbox 360. I spent a lot of my time catching up on games released in previous years that I hadn’t owned before, but there are also a lot of games for the console released in 2009 that are just made of pure awesome. Where do I begin? RE5 was a lot of fun, even though it’s nowhere near as good as RE4, Jeff and I played the hell out of the game over the year. Jeff and I also played through Halo 3 ODST together as well… not really a big fan of Halo to begin with, but I honestly do think that ODST is a much better game than the previous Halo titles, though I’m sure most fans would disagree with me.

I had bought Assassin’s Creed quite some time ago and only played a little bit of it. Despite that, I ended up buying the second game and they sat there on my media rack for a long time until Christmas long weekend when I ended up playing the entirety of Assassin’s Creed from start to finish and also 98% of Assassin’s Creed II. Right now I’m up to the very last part of the second game and will end up finishing it probably on New Year’s days.

Another great game of 2009 has to be Batman: Arkham Asylum. When I heard about it, I was sceptical and didn’t think it would be any good at all. Having actually played the game, it really is surprising how damn good the game really is. I’m also really glad they’ve announced a sequel this soon because I really can’t get enough of how awesome Arkham Asylum is. If I had to name the biggest surprise of 2009 for me, this game would be it. It’s just brilliant.

A lot of time was spent playing on my Wii and 360, not as much on my PS3, though I still value it for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves by itself… that and the tonne of Blu-ray movies I ended up getting this year… most of which were bought in December lol. I think I bought around 38 Blu-rays in December alone. The only other PS3 game I’ve bought this year is LittleBIGPlanet, though I’ve spent rarely any time on that… when I go down to the store to try to get myself to buy some more PS3 games, I find it hard to justify spending my money on them. To be honest, a lot of them don’t really excite me that much… there are a few I’d buy if they were cheaper.

I also feel really bad about neglecting my DS for most of this year. I’ve bought quite a few DS games over the last 12 months but I still feel like I should’ve paid more attention to it and I’ve probably ignored some of the more obscure DS titles I should be focusing more on. That’s okay though, I can catch up on those titles in 2010 or get them later on when they’re ridiculously cheap like the PS2 games I’ve been buying recently lol.

Anyway, that’s it for me at the moment, how has 2009 been for the rest of you?

So what exactly IS the Super Guide and why should you care or not care? In short, the Super Guide is a feature that when activated will play the game for you… and this kind of description is what has put a lot of people up in arms and have condemned the feature outright without them even looking into what it really is.

Put your rage and your conclusions aside and let’s continue on and see what this is really all about…

The Super Guide really isn’t just some magic button that let’s the game play itself. What it is is a tool to allow a game to be accessible to those who may not be the best at video games and may not be self proclaimed pro-gamers that we all seem to believe we are. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is not an easy game and although it’s not anywhere near the hardest game either, the idea of adding the Super Guide is to try to level the playing field so that people who aren’t experienced gamers won’t give up in frustration in later levels.

Let’s go through the features of the Super Guide:

• The Super Guide is not accessible right away during the game. The green Super Guide block only appears in a level if you have died 8 times in a row during the level and will disappear once you have completed that particular level.
• The feature only works in single player mode, the Super Guide block will not appear if you’re playing with two or more players.
• If you do choose to hit the green Super Guide block, you are told what the feature is about and are given an option to activate it or decline. Once activated, Luigi will take control of the game in place of Mario. With Luigi in control, at any time through the level, you can deactivate the feature and take back control of the game to finish the level yourself.
• Using the Super Guide feature will not automatically score you all of the Star Coins, it will not help you find all of the secrets or have you performing super cool moves or have Luigi run all the way to the finish. It’s a very slow, safe and boring pace and not something you’ll want to sit through time and time again.
• The game will record the fact that you’ve used the feature and will show people that fact on your save file. (Oh, the shame of it all!)
• This feature is completely optional and to add to that, you may NEVER even see that green Super Guide block appear at all. To have it appear you must first truly SUCK at the game and be desperate enough to use it.

Now that you’ve had a bit of an explanation, let’s see the Super Guide in action so you can see for yourself exactly what it’s all about.

I personally haven’t seen the feature at all through my play through of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. At the moment this entry is being written I’m currently up to 8-1 which is almost at the end of the game. The difficulty level may not be up there with Ninja Gaiden, but New Super Mario Bros. Wii does get challenging enough during certain levels that will frustrate some and ultimately have them put down the controller and move onto something that isn’t.

I almost feel as if Nintendo purposefully made the game harder because the Super Guide feature was added on. If that really is the case, then hell yes, I want this feature in more games because even though I’ll never use it and will never see the option appear to use it in the first place, it will give Nintendo an excuse to make the overall game more challenging.

…isn’t that what we all really want?

I’ll try to get through this without giving too much away in terms of spoilers for all those concerned… and there will be warning where I have given some it away…

Following paragraph contains some minor spoilers.

The scene in question where you, the player, take part in massacring innocent civilians in a terrorist act during the game was apparently leaked to the public not long ago. Before too long, the game and developer, Infinity Ward, was being accused of promoting terrorism. It has even made a few gamers question whether they really want to play through this themselves.

// End of spoilers… for now.

Obviously it’s going to make people feel uneasy (or worse) about taking part in such a horrifying act, even if it is just pixels on a screen and no one real is getting hurt. You aren’t meant to feel good about it no matter where you stand on the issue… and that really is the point of why that scene is in the game.

There are some more minor spoilers in the following paragraph.

I did feel like this was wrong and that I shouldn’t have been there, I did feel like shooting my “comrades” to stop them from continuing the massacre… as a person with common sense, I can easily separate video game fiction from real life. These weren’t real innocent people that were being shot down, but I did still feel something from the scene from the very first moment I played through it (which happens to be about 20 minutes ago from the time I’ve written this part of the entry).

// End of second set of spoilers.

What makes some movies great while others are mediocre? The answer is that the great movies tend to evoke an emotional response from the viewer to pull them into what is going on on-screen. Of course, not all of the emotions felt while watching certain movies will be positive emotions, and that really is the point.

Strong spoilers ahead!

You’re an undercover agent that has infiltrated a terrorist organisation and you happen to be taking part in a terrorist attack on an airport in Moscow. As the innocent people start dying around you as the other terrorists open fire, you are given a choice. You can do one of three things during the first part of the scene (from the way I see it)… You can start shooting along with them; you can aim high and fire, missing the civilians and shooting over their heads; or you can simply not fire a single shot at all.

I chose not to fire a single shot during the first part of the level and simply let the others take the lead. I was actually surprised by the fact that the other terrorists didn’t notice that I hadn’t fired a single shot at a civilian yet. I was half expecting the leader to turn around and say “What the hell are you doing? Shoot!” I felt that Infinity Ward missed out on a very good opportunity to really put some extra pressure on the player during that scene if they didn’t fire a shot.

After playing through it, I understood what Infinity Ward was trying to get from the scene. They want people to feel outraged and sick at what was going on. You had to take part in something so horrible but being an undercover agent with an objective that involves saving the lives of potentially millions of people, you had to grit your teeth and suffer through it. After the level ended I started to understand, in a small way, what it must feel like for undercover agents who may have to do some horrible things for their mission.

// End of spoilers.

When you start the game for the first time you’re informed that there\is some “offensive content” and are given a choice whether you want to view/play through it or not. The choice is there for you to make yourself. If you choose not to play through them then the game will skip over those parts and you won’t have to go anywhere near them at all.

I for one am not offended by the content of Modern Warfare 2. I think it’s great that Infinity Ward and Activision went ahead with this game with all of its content. It pushes the boundaries and it creates discussion and debate over certain issues. I don’t want to turn away from such things; I want to see and play it for myself and see what it’s all really about.

I enjoyed playing through that scene because it made me feel so bad. The game has been called “barbaric and awful”. The scene in question is exactly that… barbaric and awful… just like how real terrorism is barbaric and awful and just like how war and the slaughtering of people no matter who is doing the killing is barbaric and awful. Now if only some people could get more outraged when it occurs in real life rather than in a video game…

But anyway, that’s it for me… don’t forget to vote on the poll that was posted not long ago. I’ve had my take, now it’s time to hear what you have to say about it.

The first game in the series gave us sights and sounds that created quite the atmospheric dark and lonely experience. If you didn’t have a huge HDTV, a Dolby Digital capable surround sound system and a room where you could turn the lights out, draw the curtains and sit in the pitch black darkness with only the glow of the TV in front of you, then you weren’t experiencing the game the way it really is meant to be played.

On the other hand, Dead Space Extraction is an entirely different beast to the original…

Dead Space as a series has certain expectations to live up to as well as a style and atmosphere it must abide to. The second game in the series, Dead Space Extraction must still be true to the original despite the differing gameplay genre and the very different platform that it has been released on.

When EA announced that Dead Space would come to Wii, the first thing that came to the minds of Wii fans was that it would be a port/remake of the original game, in other words, a second coming of Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition. Outrage followed as more details came to light and the game was confirmed to be a rail shooter, or what EA likes to describe as a “guided first person shooter”… of course, few people bought into the idea.

Judging by the sales of this game, it seems to me that the only people who ended up buying it are the few people who own/have played and finished the first Dead Space and have a Wii. Unfortunately, the amount of people who fall into that group is quite small so the sales for Dead Space Extraction are so bad that an employee of Visceral Games has openly admitted his disappointment about it, as well as Wii as a platform for “mature” games. But just because it’s a game the sold badly, is it a bad game?

Dead Space Extraction is a prequel to Dead Space and allows you to directly experience the events that lead up right to the very beginning of the original game. It’s your average survival horror movie told from a first person perspective complete with lots of camera shake. You have your typical survivors with your typical survivor horror script and your well known stereotypical characters of the genre. It also happens to be, for long periods of time, very uneventful. Through a lot of the levels there is a lot of story to be told, however during most of these moments you really don’t have anything to shoot… which, when it comes to a on-rails shooter game… can be a bit of a problem. Luckily Dead Space has a Challenge mode that allows players to see how long they can survive hordes of Necromorphs to make up for the lack of them during heavier story moments in the story mode… Oh, another thing about the story and something I must stress is that Dead Space Extraction contains A LOT of spoilers that will definitely ruin the original game for anyone who hasn’t played it before playing this game.

Seriously, if you haven’t played the first Dead Space, you really should avoid playing Extraction… and that in itself is part of the problem mentioned earlier. This is a game that was clearly made to please fans of the first game. I loved playing through Extraction for the sake of the story itself, in fact, as soon as I finished it I got a strong urge to start a new game of the original Dead Space to continue the story where Extraction left off from. With that in mind, it does seem self defeating for the developers to release this game on a platform that doesn’t actually have the original game released on it.

The presentation is pretty well done, despite the limitations of Wii, the visuals and styling held up pretty strongly and felt just right enough to pass as a Dead Space game, of course watching the game in motion is better than viewing the screenshots to really get that sense so I’ll finish this off with the trailer shown back in E3 2009 of Extraction.

As the technology used for video games advances, developers gain the abilities to add cinematic elements to their games. There is no single method for this and each game, depending on the developers chosen style, go about this concept in many different ways.

And now onto the first and very obvious game on the list…

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Firstly, before I say anything about this game… Chloe = Australian Lara Croft in red? I know that you were all thinking it when you saw her.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is a game that successfully spread its storytelling through cutscenes as well as in-game dialogue and masterful character interactions by some extremely talented actors. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has all that, but oh man is it so much bigger, better, cooler and more thrilling than what the first game ever came close to. There are still moments when you’re put into a cutscene, but there are also a lot more moments where the story and character dialogue take place during playable events in the game. To add to that, 99.9% of all of the action, including huge explosions and thrilling fight scenes occur while the player is in control. All of this is bound together in what can be described as a perfect cinematic experience… so much so that Sony brags about it in their commercials for the game.

With the level of quality put into Uncharted 2, it makes me wonder how Naughty Dog will top themselves with the third game which we all know will come sooner or later. How can they improve on what already seems to be the best that anyone could possibly do for a series that has taken cinematic gaming to its peak? I look forward to seeing it with my own eyes years from now…

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

What the Uncharted series does during the game, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, as well as previous games in the MGS series, does during some pretty intense (and long) cutscenes. Even the die hard Metal Gear fans stopped for a moment to wonder “how long is this going to go on for?”… Of course, with MGS4 there really wasn’t any other way the story could be told… as convoluted as that story may have ended up being on some levels.

Some may criticise MGS4 for this, though when you think about it, at least they used the in-game engine to present those cinematic moments rather than the usual Full Motion Videos that were quite popular back in the day.

Back in previous generations when several consoles were starting to use CDs, there was a huge rise of FMVs showing up on practically every game that had the development budget to afford them. I remember a moment when my friend wanted to show off his new PlayStation to me back in the day. He booted up a game and showed me how awesome the FMV looked. He seemed to be really proud of how his system could do such a thing, but even back then when I was still a kid, I still knew that this was just a video playing. The funny thing is that once the game actually started it revealed less than thrilling visuals. Are FMV cutscenes a bad thing? If used well it can be a great cinematic story telling element and also show some great action that, in the past at least, couldn’t be achieved with the game engine itself. Final Fantasy VII comes to mind, though Final Fantasy VIII was the game that really pimped this feature out.

…and these other ones over here!

While some games let you watch a cutscenes in peace, others decide to throw button cues at you out of nowhere. The first time I encountered the infamous “quick time event” was in Resident Evil 4. All of a sudden an icon telling me to press the A button flashed on screen while I had my controller resting and then suddenly I was dead. It may have fooled me the first time but never again. Later on in the game I was pleased to experience the greatest interactive cutscene I had ever experienced with the knife fight between Leon and Krauser. What started out as an annoyance suddenly became awesome, and while some people will always hate QTE’s, when done right, they can make you feel like you’re a part of that cinematic moment…

Previous Resident Evil games should also be mentioned, though not for the cutscenes themselves, but rather for the in-game camera angles. Of course many gamers who used to play Alone in the Dark back in the day will recognise these forced perspective camera angles from the original Alone in the Dark on PC. These camera angles, which are used in quite a lot of different games nowadays to guide the player but also manages to add a cinematic flare to the games as well.

There’s also been a recent trend with some light gun shooter games for Wii that have their own cinematic elements. The entire game that is House of the Dead: Overkill is practically homage to every b-grade/low budget horror movie ever made. On the other hand, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles and Dead Space Extraction, both of which are heavily stylised first person rail shooters that seem to be heavily inspired by the camera shaking style of The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield.

One of the common threads that bind many cinematic games together is that they tend to be associated with more linear based games that have a single story path you must follow from start to finish. Anything that has particularly heavy story elements suffers from this effect, though in this current generation things have been changing. There is a PS3 exclusive called “Heavy Rain” that, if it can deliver on all of its promises, will lead players through a cinematic non-linear experience that have never been experience before.

I enjoy seeing these kinds of evolutions occur in video games. I’m also glad that developers are seeking out new styles of explore and not sticking with the overly used cutscenes that we’ve been used to for all these years. I’m also glad that we’ve moved on (mostly) from using FMVs and are starting to use the in-game engine for cutscenes more and more. I look forward to see what else developers come up with in the future.

I wonder how many times I’ve said “cinematic” in this entry… lol