Review: GTA IV

Fresh of the boat from Eastern Europe you arrive at in Liberty City in the land of the free. You meet up with your brother who has been feeding you lies about how good things are for him. This is how the game starts, shortly after you end up getting in to trouble with thugs and it all spirals out of control. The feeling of disillusionment is much how I felt about this game.

The game looks ok, with a slightly cel-shaded cartoon type look and the soundtrack will depend on which radio station you choose to put on in the car. I will say that the size of the city and the various routes that you can take around the city show a wide variety of buildings and areas that you typically get in a big city.

The thing that really got to me was the controls, while running around on foot the controls were manageable and while in a car they were also ok, but the controls for when you are on a bike or in a helicopter, and it was this last one that really buried the game for me. Two of the missions need a helicopter to complete them and one is the finale. But I found it really difficult to control it. You had to push the left thumb stick forward just enough in order to move forward, but do it too much and the copter goes into a nose dive. Around the same time I was playing Crackdown 2 and the controls for a helicopter in that were so much more concise.

As far as playing the game again I don’t think I’ll be rushing out to get it. Apparently there is a multiplayer element where you can tear up Liberty City with your friends but I can’t see why you would want to with controls that are this bad. Also once the main story is complete the game turns into that really annoying part of the Sims where you have to keep up appearances with your “friends”, but that was part of the Sims that I really didn’t like. As far as toughness goes some of the missions were difficult and not just because of the controls but it does seem to manage a good balance between easy and difficult missions.

Overall I really didn’t like this game bad controls spoiled the game for me, something else that may or may not have spoiled the game for me was that one of the achievements was to complete the game in 30 hours so I might not have got the most out of the game as I was rushing my through the story. 

General Update 08: DLC Dilemma

Hello Gaming Fans. I am back from my un-explained absence. But this will change shortly. I’ve been a little quiet on the update front with having a full time job which is a pain in the ass, so when I get home all I want to do is chill in front of my XBOX? So I hardly get the time to write entries, which is probably why I have a dozen or so entries lined up for me to write. The majority of which are reviews.

So what has been happening with me? well I gave up on GTA IV and returned it to my friend who I had borrowed it from. He in return gave me back Call of Duty: World at War and Red Dead Redemption. I did try COD:WaW when I got it back as I had found that I got stuck around half way through my veteran Difficulty play through. The level I was stuck on was Burn ‘em Out. And after a solid 3 -4 hours I did manage to make it to the end of that level which was when I turned off the Xbox for the evening, and I’ve still yet to go back to CoD:WaW.

After CoD:WaW I pick up one of my Christmas Presents from last year. Ghostbusters I really enjoyed this game I even managed to play through the main campaign on the hardest difficulty although there is a slight glitch than can be exploited to make getting this achievement a hell of a lot easier. Following my ghost busting career, I picked up sword and shield and ventured forth into the kingdom of Ferelden in Dragon Age: Origins. I have finished the game on one of my characters and as of Last night I managed to complete the origin story of 2 more characters.

The final game I’ve completed in my absence was Wet I got it cheap from amazon and it was so cheap it was hard not to buy it. Wet, while a little fiddly to start with does become very entertaining, and while I’ve completed the story once I still have another 3 or four play throughs to get some more achievements.

Speaking of achievements, I have now broken the 47k mark on my gamerscore and from looking at my stats on TrueAchievements.com, which gives me my stats without DLC included, it shows that I am almost on my goal of reaching the 70%/70% mark I had set myself. The 70%/70% stat is worked out by the percentage of total achievements and gamerscore of the games on my gamertag. My current stat is 69.42%/69.07% for Retail games.

DLC is something else I have been thinking about recently. I have at least 2 DLC add-ons that I have yet to play, and yet more are being released. With half a dozen being available for Dragon Age: Origins which include the expansion pack awakening, there are a few for Mass Effect 2 as well that I need to try for, and the Toy box for Crackdown 2 is also now available. Is now the right time for me to take a break from the retail side of things and try and get the most out of the games I’ve already got? Some of which the core games still hold achievements for me to get. Yes, Alan Wake I’m talking about you and your Nightmare play through!

Gaming Gripe 01: Losing Control

You know how some things you take for granted until something comes along that really makes you notice how much you've taken it for granted? I had this happen to me just recently with game controls, at first I noticed it on Red Dead Redemption which I've still got to write my review for. In Red Dead, I found that when you try enter a door but you hit the frame if you then try and turn to go in the middle your turning circle just happened to be door size so you found yourself nose to nose with the door frame on the other side, but I brushed this off, it wasn't often that it happened and the way around this was to back off and come at the door at a bit of a run.

So I moved on and played some other games like Crackdown 2, but I finished the story ahead of my friends so they weren't looking for orbs just yet so as sort of stop gap between games I thought I would go back and get a few more Gamerscore on one of the games I've thought of as having a black mark on my gamertag, GTA IV. I first saw GTA IV when a friend of mine brought it over and started showing me what it was like, and for whatever reason I never touched it again. I recently borrowed a copy off a friend so that I could try and bump up the gamerscore, and while I've now completed the story I'm not sure if I'll get most of the side missions mostly due the fact that . . . well I can't stand the game.

Some people may think I'm completely wrong, but aside from the fact that I'm finding the game dull a repetitive I'm finding the controls really awkward. You have to keep tapping the run button to sprint and hold it to run which isn't really worth it as it's not really any faster than walking. When you’re driving a boat you can press forward and back make the nose of the boat raise or lower, but this has no effect on the overall speed of the boat but the controls that leave me totally mystified are for the helicopter.

The flight controls are a lot like those knobs in a shower were you have to be a safe cracker to get the water at just the right temperature. You have to push forward on the left thumb stick just the right amount while applying just enough acceleration on the right trigger, while doing all this you have to use left and right bumpers to turn. That's 3 digits working together, but then on the final mission you find yourself in a helicopter and have to use X to fire the guns. Is it just me or is this really complicated? Especially when you compare this to say Crackdown 2 where left and right bumpers control altitude while right stick is the camera, and left stick is main controls. You then use left and right triggers to fire weapons, Oh yeah and you can press the left stick to get a boost.

You may think that I may just be me hating on GTA IV, I think that's what all the cool kids are saying now a days, but really I'm not. Red Dead is a better game by far, I'm not sure if the story is longer or shorter than GTA but it defiantly held my interest a lot more than GTA did, and I think the control issues are probably something that I’m more than likely going to have to live with especially if I want to get some more of the achievements. 

General Update 06: From Pacific City to Liberty City and back again

So we come to the end of yet another weekend. I did quite well, I managed to clock up 10 achievements for 170 gamerscore. These were all in Crackdown 2, the other game I played this weekend was GTA IV. I went back to GTA as I have finished everything I can do on my own in Crackdown 2. I've still got some achievements left to get but these are co-op ones that I'm getting my friends to help me with.

GTA IV is still a grind especially as the main achievement I'm looking to get is Liberty City Minute, which is to complete the story in 30 real time hours. as this is the only missable achievement that will require a second play through and considering my distaste for the game I really don't want to have to play it again.

I did watch an Inside Xbox video on the dashboard from Comic Con about Spiderman Shattered Dimensions which, being a massive marvel fan, I am really looking forward to, another reason is one of the dimensions is based in the Noir universe.

I know I forgot to do a Friday LOL for the second week in a row, but work has been crazy busy and when I get in I just want to play games and chill out. So you'll have to forgive me, but to try and make up for it in some way I will try and get a couple of reviews up on the site during the week.

General Update 05: A birth (day), a wedding and lot and lots of grisly death

As you may have noticed I didn’t do a Friday LOL on Friday, this was due to me going away for the weekend. It was my sisters Birthday and a friend’s wedding and I was in attendance of both. With being away I didn’t get much of a chance for getting any gaming in but considering I’ve not posted since last Friday an update on what I’ve been doing to avoid my bloggers responsibilities is probably warranted.

Crackdown 2 makes up the most of what I’ve been playing lately although I did download The Secret of Monkey Island 2: le chuck’s revenge Special Edition that was released last week. While I was at my sisters I did get to play on her Xbox but as it was her Birthday I didn’t play on my Gamertag I was on hers helping her to achieve the last two achievements for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

The achievements in question were Master of Flying, which was to get 5 Stars for all of the Flying tasks, and Duelling Veteran, which was to score 5 Stars on 10 Duels. The Dueling achievement was fairly easy once you know how. But the flying one is only possible with practise. Getting both of those for my sister gave her her first 1000g game.

We are in the gaming release period drought, which is good for me as I still have a few games that I need to go back and finish. Red Faction: Guerrilla, Darksiders (which has had a sequel announced), Ghostbusters and the big one Dragon Age: Origins. Dragon Age has also had a Sequel announced from what’s been said about it it’s only going to have one character. 

General Update 03: Liberty City Bound

Howdy Gamer-folk,

It would appear that I've been slacking off on my blogger duties but don't worry I'm not dead, I have actually been quite busy. Last Friday I picked up Singularity, I was really enjoying it until I got stuck but then I did jump straight in on Hard. It is my theory that if you start on a harder difficulty then your learning curve will be much steeper but I also think that if you don't try this then any strategies that you have used for medium might not be applicable when playing on the harder setting. So I set a challenge for you dear reader next game you pick with a game with variable difficulty why not try going for a difficulty one up from what you're used to?

On Saturday I picked up another new release Lego Harry Potter. I really enjoyed this game as well, it's exactly what you would expect from a Lego game. With previous knowledge of all the Lego games I found I was able to breeze through it rather quickly. So I've now completed both Singularity as well as Lego Harry Potter, reviews to be posted soon, I promise.

So what else have I been up to as it has been a couple of weeks since my last post. Well a two weeks back the Crackdown 2 demo was released. I've not played on it much but I have enjoyed what I've played. The first time I loaded up the demo I was rushing around like a headless chicken trying to pick up a many orbs as I could. This soon stopped when I realised they weren't permanent. however there are 10 achievements that you can earn in the demo that will unlock when you play the full game.

Crackdown 2 is released at the end of the week and I have all of the Solo play achievements for Singularity so I've managed to borrow GTA IV off of a friend and have been running around Liberty City, it's not holding my attention as much as I would like and I'm still not seeing what the hype was all about. In fact I was hoping it would be a lot like Red Dead Redemptionbut it's not.

I have been working on trying to add another page to go along with my Review Leader Board. While I am still trying to work out how to display it, it will be my hall of Fame/Shame it will show all the game that I have gotten the full 1000G, 'Hall of Fame', as well as all those games where I'm lagging behind, 'Hall of Shame'. I will post an update when it is available.

Yet Another Bank Holiday 'Round up'

Yes we have had another bank holiday weekend and this meant more gaming for me and I really do need more time for gaming, in fact I should probably be playing right now but then how would you know how I was getting on? 

So what was I playing? Well seeing as I had finished Alan Wake I thought I would try something a bit different. I ordered Red Dead Redemption early last week and it turned up on Thursday so I've been playing that but I saw that Doom 2 was released on XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade). So on Friday I downloaded the demo as well as the one for Doom. It was fantastic, and seeing as the original had dropped in price to 400MSP (Microsoft points) I bit the bullet and bought it.

I also saw on my Twitter feed, Gamerpraggers if you want to follow me, that the Ninety-Nine Nights 2 demo was released, however when I went to look for it however I was Schtupped, as it looks like it was only released in the States. I have sent a message to SUAM (Sent you a Message) to see if it's going to be coming out over here, so who knows I might get a mention on Saturday. Although now I think of it I didn't put my gamertag on the message so it might not be me getting the mention! Damn it!

So apart from riding my way across the wild plains for southern America and Mexico, and shooting demon spawn from hell on Mars' moon Phobos I also broke the 40K barrier. I've also been thinking about possibly setting myself a challenge but I'm not sure yet what to set, it might be to do with raising my percentages as at the moment, according to xbox360Achievements.com, my achievements Percentage is 59% and my points percentage is 58%. So my challenge could be to raise one or both to over a certain percentage but that's not very original so I think more thought will be needed before I decide on something. 

So things will probably be a bit quiet for the next couple of weeks and then it will get quite hectic as we have E3, which will be huge as well as interesting as we'll finally get to see what's been done with natal as well as find out it's real name, as well Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4, and Singularity released on the same day then I have a week before Crackdown 2. I think I'm going to need a plan. . . but you can count on me, to at least try, to blog about what comes out of E3.

A[long time coming] Look To The Future. . .

So I read or heard somewhere recently that this year Microsoft has got a big name game every month this year, doing a quick search I found the quote on the OXM site. "Starting in January we have like a triple A exclusive title pretty much every month for the first half of the year," Aaron Greenberg. He then went on to say "You've got Mass Effect 2, you've got Splinter Cell, you've got Alan Wake, you've got Crackdown 2...you've [also] got things like Fable 3 and Halo: Reach coming later that year. Those are just the exclusives." So I thought I’d reflect on this and give my opinion on some of the hottest games I'm looking forward to this year. So let’s jump straight in with . . .

Mass Effect 2

The much anticipated sequel is set 2 years after the original and follows the exploits of Commander Shepard and his preparation for the invasion of the reapers. Mass Effect 2 is out now, and as I’ve already mentioned I’ve actually completed it as well. My review will be uploaded shortly.

Alan Wake

I'm really looking forward to this game, I saw a clip of the game play in the E3 2009 Keynote speech, and it looked fantastic. So what is it? It’s a horror survival game where you play Alan Wake a writer who’s having some trouble with his craft, and decides there is no time like the present to take some time off with his wife. While away he realises he is actually in one of his stories. That’s the setup and I’ve got to say I’m hooked already, it’s also an XBOX 360 exclusive.

Crackdown 2

This was another game that was announced at last years E3 event and at the time i hadn't played the original. However I picked up the original on the cheap after a friend also recommended it to me and I was very impressed. It's a good game with an interesting story which I really enjoyed playing. More details have been released now and I'm really excited to see how they have improved on the original.

Fable 3

Lionhead studio's biggest franchise is set to follow up with Fable III later on this year. With details emerging that there will  be no health bar opting instead for a more Call of Duty/Mass Effect display where the screen will convey your health, a lack of experience points meaning your "level" will be derived from your interactions with the NPC's (Non-Player Characters). I've also heard that there is no fighting in the first 1 hour of game play. The story it's self is set 50 years after the events of Fable II. 

Halo:Reach

There is a lot of hype surrounding this game probably due to it being the last proper Halo Game. I say that because Bungie is handing over the Halo name to Microsoft owned 343 studios. While details are scarce the multiplayer Beta will be launched on May 3rd with invitations included in last years Halo 3:ODST.