Wednesday 24 February 2010

Dude, where’s my Save File?

It’s been a while since my last post, but I have been busy the past couple of weeks not just with work but with my gaming and socialising. It was also my birthday last week, and I was away for a couple of days however I was able to pick up my X-Men Origins: Wolverine save file as recently I’ve been playing on several Xbox’s so to make things easier I’ve been using a Memory Unit to move my Profile around but I also need to remember to pick up the save files.

At Christmas I went to visit my sister and started playing X-Men Origins: Wolverine. When I got home I was moving my profile and save games off the memory unit onto my main console but couldn’t find the save file for Wolverine, as I had got fairly far I didn’t want to start again so I left it on the shelf until I went back for my birthday. When I booted up my sisters Xbox I still couldn’t find the save file. But when I loaded up the game I could still continue from where I got to. I swapped out the memory unit so I was just on the hard drive still could continue. Just the hard drive could still continue. So I have no idea where the game is held. But I have now finished it, aside from 2 achievements, Walking Death and Devil’s Brigade. Which are to complete the game on Hard and collect all the dog tags. I should be starting that tonight.

What else have I been up to, I went to see a friend of my who hurt his foot while moving house, so they’ve been tied up and we’ve not seen them for ages, but we managed to get together one weekend and had a few games on the Xbox. I was also able to pick up Lego Indiana Jones which I lent him so I was able to finish that which I have now done, look out for the review coming soon as well as for Wolverine.

Once I’ve finished Wolverine I should be back to The Saboteur I’m slowly getting through the free play events before I carry on with the story, but I still have some work to do on getting some of the perks.

Wednesday 10 February 2010

Online Play For All?

How do you people feel about online play? Well according to an article on IGN EA Plans Online Play, DLC For All New Titles
I've got to say I'm very scepticle about this news, I have played online and there are games that are specifically designed with online multi-player in mind, for example games like Call of Duty, Left4Dead, Left4Dead2 and Burnout Paradise. The best example out of those titles is Left4Dead, it's a multi-player game with a solo campaign. The reverse can be said of Bioshock where it was an excellent solo play game with an excellent story, graphics and atmosphere the developers decided that it needed a multi-player mode which they released with the PS3 Edition, and have developed that idea for the upcoming sequel.

Looking at the titles EA have released so far you have both the Mass Effect games, Dragon Age:Origins which has recently had a sequel announced, Dante's Inferno and The Saboteur. All of these games are single player and we play them for the story, not to reach a cut scene and have your mates talk all over it, I get annoyed when my girlfriend asks if I wanted a drink while I was trying to find out why a massive alien hadn't just killed my where I stood. Now don't get me wrong I know that the article isn't saying that all games will have a multiplayer storyline, but have some sort of multiplayer mode. 

Another good example of this sort of thing is Assassins Creed 2. Ubisoft have created the Uplay system an in-game system for downloading extras and additional Downloadable content for certain games. You pay for these by unlocking uplay points by doing certain actions in the game. One of these is an arena that you can play against your friends, I don't see the point personally, because you only have a set number of moves that your friend will know as well, it's like playing rock, paper, scissors. There is no skill and this is surely the whole point of multi-player Vs. modes, showing off your skills against other opponents. I could be wrong about this as I've not played it personally.

A lot of this will depend on how well the multi-player is done, with the Bioshock 2 example, 2K have a completely separate development team working on the multi-player platform so it's not supposed to feel like it's been tacked on. 

Friday 5 February 2010

What Have I Been Doing?

I know I said I was going to try and write an entry every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but I let it slip a bit this week but thats probably due to playing Mass Effect 2. However with posting this update, then there will have been 2 updates this week so it's only one that has been missed, which isn't too bad.

As I said in a previous post I recently bought Mass Effect 2. I've now completed the story, however I'm still working towards 2 more achievements. I've only got Warp Specialist - Warp the barriers of 25 enemies, and the biggest one Insane - Complete the game on the Insanity Difficulty. The latter I am finding a lot more difficult than when trying to complete the first game on Insanity, but as was pointed out earlier today, when you were continuing a game you already head decent weapons, but this time round you have to wait for the upgrades to come, although you do start with the main weapons.

I have seen the teaser trailer for Fallout: New Vegas. Although it's only a teaser trailer and not designed to give anything away, I'm sure there will be plenty of speculation as to what it will include. I'm guessing the figure at the end is either someone from the Brotherhood of Steel or it's the character that you will be playing.

So what does the near future hold for me on the gaming scene? Well, I'm hoping to finish off Mass Effect 2 to the full 1015G (go Figure!), and as the neither pick up Dragon Age: Origins again or maybe go back and pick up The Saboteur. However we are only 4 days away from Bioshock 2 being released, and I'm really interested in that as well, but what with my birthday coming up I've already decided that I'm not going to be getting any games as I already  have a large back log of games.

Tuesday 2 February 2010

Review: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2


Marvel Ultimate alliance 2 follows the secret and civil war story arcs from the Comics, and then throws in an interesting story twist for the final Act. Having read the civil war story in the  Marvel Comics I was happy with the way they handled the story. As you can imagine most of the major players from the first game are back such as iron man, captain America and Col. Fury.

The graphics and story line are much improved over the first game, and the choice of characters should appeal to a wide audience. With the story blurring the lines between good guys and bad guys it also allows for some characters who would typically be called bad guys, for example Venom and Green Goblin.
The combat has remained pretty much the same, with it being simple to get the hang of, but the major attacks that you had in the first game now come in the form of fusions. This allows two of your party to team up and use their abilities together, which in my opinion is a good addition to the game.

The Achievements were fairly straight forward if not a little tedious in places, for example defeating the majority of the bosses on super heroic or legendary difficulty which actually leads me onto my one major peeve of the game, the stats menu. In this menu you can see various stats so you are able to see how far along with an achievement you are. However if you complete a level with our a revival, then that gets marked as done no matter what difficulty you do it on. This can get a little confusing if your first play through was on heroic, and your next was on Legendary.

Overall the improvements to game play and graphics have really bolstered this game, it was enjoyable to play as well as act out one of the more dramatic story arcs of the Marvel universe with only minor issues while going for the full 1000g.You should get this game if you’re into the Marvel Comics or enjoyed the first one.

There is a DLC package out with a few new characters and a few new maps/missions to try along with Gamerscore. I’ve got enough in my back log without having to add anything else to it, so it’s one hold for the moment.