Review: Mass Effect 2

To say I am a Mass Effect Fan would probably be an understatement, so I was very much looking forward to this release. Sequels are very tricky to get right, as from a publisher/developer stand point you want to give the fans what they want as well as make it new and not feel like it’s just more of the same. So was I going to be disappointed by Mass Effect 2? The answer in short is not likely!
The story follows on directly from the first game and makes you feel like you've hardly been away, it's a strong story as well. The new characters are introduced well and while you may not feel as close to them as you did to Wrex, Garrus, Kaiden, Tali, Liara and Ashley you do still build up a relationship with them. I think that a lot of the reason you don't feel close to them is because there are more. In the first game there were 6 fellow crew mates that you could choose from, but in this game you have 10, 11 if you have the DLC, characters to choose from.
The level system, has been changed as well you no longer get experience from killing enemies but from completing the missions, and the weapons system now relies on upgrades. However the use of guns has also been changed, you now have ammo, in the form of heat clips, to consider. This is explained in a codex that you pick up, I personally think the idea works, but I don't like it as it's a distraction. You also have to upgrade the weapons using resources that you mine from a planet’s surface. Technically it's a little mini game but I found it tedious and boring after a while. It was the weakest part of the game for me, but I have thought of a way to make it better. A scan of the entire planet  could be done from orbit, much like the first one and a probe launched from the ship the mine would be self maintained with the player swinging by at a later time to pick up the resources collected in their absence. the amount collected would depend on how rich the supply is. Side missions could also call for the player to defend a mine.
I really enjoyed playing Mass Effect 2. The story is really strong and should lead well into Mass Effect 3, especially after the cliff-hanger at the end of the game. However I did have to stop playing I was trying to work on the Insanity achievement but I got stuck so before I ended up hating the game I moved on to something else.

Last Remnant? more like Lost Remnant!

As you may have noticed I've not written in a while. I would like to say that this was because I've been busy putting the finishing touches on some of the many posts that I have been promising over the past couple of months, or that I was working hard on playing Final Fantasy XIII, or that I had been abducted by aliens. Unfortunately it's not the case for any of the above. So here is a quick run down of what I've been up to.


After completing Wolverine I was in a Marvel Mood, however with a backlog of games only just a little shorter than the list of up coming games, I want to get my grubby little gamer hands on, I didn't feel I could justify getting another game. But my girlfriend helped me out but buying me Iron Man. However I didn't play it straight away. I decided that, as I was most of the way through playing The Saboteur, I would finish it first. 


I finished Iron Man in about a week and it took me another week to whore all  the achievements. I liked it, mostly because I'm a Marvel Fan Boy, but also I got to play as Iron Man, I mean who wouldn't want to be a millionaire Playboy genius! However there were some very frustrating moments, but I will explain more about those in the review.


After that I thought I would get my fill of JRPG's, what with the then upcoming release of Final Fantasy XIII, so I dusted off my copy of Last Remnant and picked up where I left off. Unfortunately the save file I had going was past a certain point so i had to go back a bit and try again, which has turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I'm actually doing better than I was.  


And that's pretty much it, I've taken a step back from playing everyday as my gf has been playing FF13. I will get around to it at some point, but not yet. I've still got Dragon Age, Left4Dead2, Ghostbusters and Dead Space from before Christmas, as well as BioShock 2, Dante's Inferno and numerous others that I still want to buy, I'm sure I will be kept busy.  

Review: X-Men Origins:Wolverine

Having seen the film and hearing that this game wasn’t just a movie tie in game I was really interested to play it. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, Dude! Where’s my save file, I started and then had a break of about a month or so before I was able to get back into playing it.

Being a Marvel Geek it wasn’t going to take much to convince me the game was good. It looked great and played really well, the story line was easy enough to follow and pretty much built upon what the film had already established. I say built upon as it used its own artistic license to fill in a few of the blanks especially in regards to the Africa mission.

The combat was easy to get to grips with and worked really well, as did the levelling up system. The idea of having special attacks for each type of unit worked well to make the combat varied enough even if I was using the same move. Now I will add here that it wasn’t because the other combos were complicated or hard to pull off, but I found that the old adage KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid, held ground a lot. I mean why pull of complicated combos when a simple 1, 2 will work just as well.

Overall I found the game really enjoyable, in fact the last achievement I had to get was to complete the game on Hard which while not being over the top stupidly hard like some other games I could mention, it was still challenging enough to be called Hard. If you enjoy Marvel or the Wolverine film then do pick this up as it’s a good, fun mauler.

Review: Lego Indiana Jones

Lego Indy is in much the same vein as the Lego Star Wars games, in that it follows the story of the 3 films. I got this game after playing Lego Star Wars which I thoroughly enjoyed despite not been that big a fan of the films. I was hoping the same would apply to Lego Indy. I was wrong. Although enjoyable to start with the novelty soon wore off. I started playing the game with my Girlfriend however after we had gone through all the levels the first time it was getting difficult to persuade her to play, not because she’s not a gamer, she is, but because she was bored of it.

I know what she meant because it was, it didn’t have that something that Lego Star Wars or Lego Batman had. Maybe it’s because I’m not that big an Indy fan or maybe it’s because the game is lacking, I don’t know for certain but I did manage to stick through it and get all 1000g. I am a Gamerscore whore after all. The achievements being a Lego game are easy enough to  get some are a little time consuming especially the using of abilities achievements.

Overall I would say if you’re a fan of the films or if you really need a Lego game fix until Lego Harry Potter years 1-4 is released then I do think you should pick it up, otherwise I’d probably say leave it, there are more enjoyable games out there to play. So to sum up this is the weakest Lego game at the moment but not a completely horrible game.

“Busy” Weekend

Another weekend done with and another game completed as well. Friday night I completed X-men Origins: Wolverine on Hard which game me the last Achievement for the 1000G, the review will be up this week so look out for that. I was then able to get back to playing The Saboteur. I must be most of the way through the story now but I know that completing a lot of the free play events will take up a lot of time.

After The Saboteur I have a choice do I play Ghostbusters, Ironman or Dragon Age: Origins? I have started on both Ghostbusters and DA:O but Ironman is a new one. I’m leaning towards Ironman as I’m interested to see what it’s like, but I do know It didn’t get very good reviews.

So what have you been playing recently? Also does anyone know of any other good Marvel games on the Xbox 360?