Ninja-Pirates Posts Again!

So with Vip0r AFK (well I assume he is I honestly have no idea) the reins have been handed to my slightly shaking yet generally steady hands (the shaking isn’t from nerves I’ve just stopped playing super street fighter 4 and I am coming down from the adrenaline rush of being repeatedly dragon punched). However rather than bringing you this week’s happenings (which I feel is kind of Vip0r’s thing) I figured I’d go for the classic something old something new something borrowed and something blue……well here goes nothing……

Something Old

So when it comes to Xbox 360 games you can’t get much older than Oblivion, I picked it back up just the other day after forgetting just how truly brilliant it is. Of course as everyone knows oblivion is a simply must have game so if you don’t have it go get in now! You can probably pick it up for around £10-£15 including the expansion pack and even sometimes you can get it in a bundle with Bioshock another truly great game, what a deal!

Something New

It would seem that the must have game of the moment is Red Dead Redemption, well that or Alan Wake but a game about bad guys who are hurt by light seems like a game where you should just sleep with a night light on until tomorrow comes, that is assuming that Ronan Keating is wrong and tomorrow does come (sorry about that very very bad joke I’ll try to stop).

So Red Dead Redemption see’s you play as an ex-con who’s attempting to play it straight after being left for dead by his gang, but after federal agents kidnap your wife and child you start on an epic journey. This game comes from Rockstar studios the creators of the GTA series and you can clearly see this in the game, simply looking at the hud it looks identical to the GTA style but this game has a feel much more like that of the Bully game Rockstar developed.

Unfortunately with this game being so huge I haven’t had time to play much of it, but hopefully Vip0r should have much more to say about it. If you’re looking at getting a copy id b quick because last time I checked most places were sold out!!! So clearly it’s due to be an epic!

Something Borrowed

Well as per usual the place I go to borrow games from first is of course my brother!!! (He has a lot more games) and so when routing through his games I came across DarkSiders, a game in which you play as War, one of the four horsemen, hacking and slashing your way through an army of demons and angels as you try to maintain the balance of good and evil.

From what I had heard about the game it seemed like it would be quite an entertaining mix of Zelda and God of War, but it seems like the game developers thought they’d throw in some Portal and Star Wars: The force unleashed, so this game must be awesome……right?  The story is entertaining enough and gives you plenty of reason to slice your way through various ugly looking demons and even the odd angel. These hack and slash moments, which do become rather repetitive and boring especially after you learn the kill everything combo…….not sure thats what its called, are broken up with Zelda esque puzzles and boss fights. The game did manage to keep my achievement needs in check with them popping up throughout the story line and even gave me a tidy 210 gamerscore points for completing the game on the hardest difficulty setting, which unfortunately only took a few hours and although I do tend to ‘blitz’ games quicker than the average gamer but still it is a bit on the short side although it’s not as bad as some (I’m talking about you halo odst!!!)

Overall it was well worth the £0 I paid which is generally how I feel about borrowed games, however if you do fancy a play you can pick up a copy for around £20, and is probably entertaining enough for you to think your money has been well spent and if not you can always trade it in!

Something Blue

Ok so I don’t actually have anything blue it’s just got to be in there otherwise the whole old new borrowed thing doesn’t really work…..anyway hope Vip0r approves of my post because if he doesn’t this will be a ‘limited edition’ ‘while stocks last’ post! Oh well hopefully it won’t come to that any coments send me a message on twitter or at my gamertag or you could simply leave them below anywho until next time hasta la vista baby!

This Weeks Happenings…

I love it when a plan comes together!

I’ve had quite a busy week this week. I’ve not been able to get as much gaming in as I’d hoped, but it’s been quite an interesting week to say the least.
It’s been quite a catch up week in terms of playing through a few older games and getting round to playing online with a few friends on several games.

I got chance to have a little play around with my camera and posted The Street Fighter – Fight Pad video. I’ve have had some great feedback from several people too which is great.

Thanks guys & gals!

Hopefully I’ll get round to using it a little more.

Anyway…

This week I met an 80s legend!

A-Teams very own Face, (Dirk Benedict).

It was great to finally meet someone I watched so much on Tv whilst growing up!

He also played Starbuck in the original series of Battlestar Galactica, which I watched so much as a kid and love the new series too.

He’s such an awesome guy in real-life and he was kind enough to take time out from playing Columbo at a theatre in Blackpool, to do a signing for around 200 fans.

Anyway, back to gaming stuff…

The 80s were AWESOME! Enough said…

This week I picked up a copy of Lips: I Love the 80s & Lips: Party Classics. Both were on sale at GAME for £12.98.

That’s more or less half the price of the RRP. Which is fantasitic considering both have only been out for a couple of weeks.

They also had the Wireless Microphone Bundles for £19.99 which are great to use with Rock Band too, so if you haven’t already got a pair I highly recommend you should get them while they’re so cheap. Currently they’re around £19.99-£24.99 just for one of the mics separately.

There’s nothing more fun than a few drinks and shoving on some Lips!

Borderlands: Island of Dr. NED.

I booted up Borderlands this week with a couple of friends and we decided to play through The Island of Dr. NED.

It takes you to a spooky, kooky, Scooby Doo-esque island where zombies roam freely.

It doesn’t add much in terms of new loot or raise the level cap, but what you get is a fresh extra few hours of play.

There’s a new Halloween themed story that’s being told by Marcus, (who told the story of Vault Dwellers in the main game).
This time he’s talking with a child that asks him various questions which can lead to several funny moments as he gets interrupted and corrected.

It adds several quests which are all a mix of the usual: Find someone dead, kill a certain beast in some area and the some ‘Scavenge the loot’ missions which make you search to find the last piece of the puzzles.

It’s as close as we’ll ever get to Borderlands 4 Dead!

There’s several new enemies and not just the land crawling with zombies, but other creatures like ‘SkeleRakk’, ‘WhereSkags’ and ‘Tankensteins’ to name a few, all with there own characteristics and attacks.

I think my favorite part is the whole landscape & art style. It feels like a theme park ride and blends the perfect colours & lighting effects.

Overall a fantastic addition to what was already a great game and a definite purchase to anyone who likes Borderlands.

I finally purchased a copy of Halo3: Recon ODST recently and have fired it up for the Halo: Reach Beta.

I should get chance at a chance to post a few of my thoughts on it sometime this week.

My first impression so far is that its more Halo with added ‘Umpf!’

That’s about all I’ve been up to this week really. Although I’m looking forward to getting a copy of Alan Wake and Red Dead Redemption in the coming weeks.
Fingers crossed I can put some cash aside for them.

So this week I’m hoping to get more wrote up on here, like my thoughts on the Fight Pad, maybe a little more on SSFIV and try and figure out getting some more videos on here too.

Oh and why your here…

There’s a new Dreamcast Blog just gone Live which seems to have some great intentions. It’s about keeping an extensive archive about the Dreamcast in great detail. It’s going to have loads of reviews and information, with pictures of all the packaging and things like Multi-Regional versions of games etc…

You should go check it out! : Dreamcast Channel

So that’s it for This Weeks Happenings!

Any thoughts and suggestions would be a great help too!
Email: hlmodfreak@hotmail.com

See you in the funny pages!

VIP0R’s Blog… is a TeaM-InK® Ltd publication. All rights reserved.

This Weeks Happenings…

Whats the word on the street?!

This Weeks been a long week, but I’ve actually fit quite a lot of different games in.

Between working & finishing off with my unpacking, I sat down more often than I have for a while and got some good hours on a few machines.
This months pay has also been pretty decent allowing for more leeway when it comes to buying things I wouldn’t normally afford with having a house, bills and other necessities getting in the way. Alas! Everything seems to be going much smoother now.

So anyway let’s get to the games.

Splinter Cell: Conviction.

I finally managed to get a copy of Splinter Cell: Conviction and flew through it in a matter of hours. What a roller coaster!
Although a tad short, it was still greatly paced and full of excitement. It just felt like being sat down in the cinema and watching a decent action movie (Ala Bourne Identity).

One of the games most brilliant features is the ‘Interactive Interrogation Animations’ which keeps the action going during the cut-scenes and can have several outcomes.

You can’t get much more satisfaction than slamming a guys head into a urinal.

Some other great & unique features are the ‘Mark & Execute’ which basically sees you aiming at a target and pressing the right bumper to spot the enemies location, which is similar to the feature in Rainbow Six: Vegas. After marking several enemies you can Execute which basically takes all the targets in range one by one in a slow motion effect which looks like something taken straight out of the Jason Bourne films. It gives you a real buzz after you take out an entire room using it.
Another great feature is ‘Last Known Position’ which is when you get spotted and you leg it, you leave a silhouette behind from where the enemies last saw you. Enemies will keep searching that area while you can go round behind and flank them.

This time round some of the other games mechanics have been slightly rewritten too. There are quite a few tricks Sam used to have up his sleeve that are missing, like Split jumping, being able to pick up & drag bodies to hide them from other enemies and he’s forgotten how to whistle. Only slight changes but several times I would have been more stealthy if I could have hidden a few bodies out of sight.

I’ve not really had too much chance playing through co-op, due to not having any friends online that I’d normally play something like that with, or we’ve all been online and played something all together. That’s one draw back with Conviction, the lack of online multiplayer. It’s been part of the franchise in one form or another since Pandora Tomorrow, so I was quite surprised it was cut. Although it became a bit daft in Double Agent where spy’s seemed like superhuman acrobatic ninjas, versus the over techno-enhanced super soldiers.

What I’ve played of the co-op seems fun though and with promised DLC support I can see it lasting a little more than most games do lately.

Micheal Ironside is still Sam Fisher, I don’t think they could ever replace him to be honest. He is the voice of Sam and always should be. Never change him.

Overall the game seems like a typical Ubisoft title where its fantastic, but could have had that little bit longer in development to polish a few things off properly. Mostly the twitchy AI & some character model textures could have done with some touching up.

But it’s still a brilliant game. I like the new direction they’ve taken and has added much-needed fresh take on the stealth/action genre.
I recommended it for fans of the series & action gamers alike.

Wolfenstein 3D.

Die, Allied Schweinhund! Mein leben…!

I’ve been playing this game for a couple of hours here & there this week, I don’t really know what got me started on it. I started playing it just before my magazine of Retro Gamer arrived, which heavily features John Romero and the creation of all things at id Software. It was either in anticipation of that or just a random nostalgic impulse.

This is one of my favorite games of all time. DooM might be better, but there wouldn’t be DooM without this game a year earlier. I can remember the first time I saw it and knew it was something different. While all my friends were busy playing Sonic the Hedgehog, I was busy on my Pc shooting Nazis and wondering who the bloke in pictures on the wall was… (Hey I was only about 7!)

I remember being at a friends sleep over and playing it till around 10pm when the lights were supposed to be turned off to go to sleep, then we stealthily played it till about Midnight. (Again I was about 7 so that was really, really late).

Anyway since then I’ve grown up and understand a lot more about WWII and actually found out more about the game’s story. I can see why there were the Zombies & Nazi experiments in Return to Castle Wolfenstein. In the second chapter of Wolf3D there are Zombies and mentions experiments among other things in the brief story pages at the end of chapters.

I know many people look at Wolfenstein and laugh, but at the time it was so ground breaking in many ways and made way for the juggernaut that is DooM and the wrath of Death-match that is Quake.

Super Street Fighter IV.

I’ve not had too much time to play this yet seen as I’ve more or less just took the cellophane wrapping off, but what I have played is just that awesome street fighter-ness. It’s so great that it still plays & feels like a brand new game.

How can you make something that was perfect, better?! Either way Capcom seemed to have managed it!

It’s just a year after Street Fighter IV took the arcade fighting genre and this is a full super enhanced version. What was already a perfect fighter has been changed in so many minor ways which just makes all the difference. Capcom have taken all the complaints & recommendations from fans to create the ultimate version (until a Championship/Ultra Edition).

The number one complaint that I had with SFIV was the lack of a quarter match mode. It seemed such a simple feature that’s been apart of the franchise for ages. I thought maybe they would patch it in an update but it never materialized until now.

I don’t understand why SSFIV wasn’t in the form of DLC too, but I guess there’s that many changes that it would be madness to release as an update. Burnout had substantial DLC which altered the game in so many ways so it’s not that its impossible. I just think they must have found it easier to release it at retail at a budgeted price and quite frankly £19.71 is a fantastic price.

The only little niggle I’ve found so far is that the game features two ultra combos now, but you can only select to use one in a match. I think I would have preferred to have both at all times and can precisely use the right combo at the right time. It’s not over drastic, but that’s something I’d like to see.

I’ve had a quick play around with the ten new characters and played with the new ultra combos and all seem to be nicely polished and still have some great comedian characters. Especially Hakan, the Turkish wrestler who smothers himself with oil at every chance he can get.

My favorite character to return from a former street fighter is Dudley! Just a great British boxer with a corny accent. Perfect!

So that’s mostly what I’ve been up to this week. Many different games & a nice mix of genres too. I also had a good hour or so on Torchlight via Steam which I might talk about more when I’ve finished it to the end, but it’s defiantly a great Diablo game!

That magazine Retro Gamer that I mentioned about earlier is a great read. It features an interview with John Romero. Going all out on the ins and outs of the creation of id Software. Where DooM came from and how Quake forced John Romero to leave the company he built from the ground up.

Also features The Making of Dizzy!

I’ve also been having a few thoughts onto what I’d like to do on this blog too. I’m defiantly going to start updating and using it more now I’ve got more free time and some extra cash flow. I’ve also got a podcast kit that I’ve hardly used yet, just set it up ready to use.

So watch this space…

VIP0R’s Blog… is a TeaM-InK® Ltd publication. All rights reserved.

Splinter Cell: Conviction Guest Review

Should this review be Convicted?!

I haven’t had the chance to pick up a copy of Conviction just yet. Currently moving & lack of funds can be my excuse!
So I thought I’d get someone who’s finished it a chance to write something for a change.

So here’s I9 NinjaPirates first exclusive review:
ITS AWESOME you can punch ppl in the face and shoot them and blow them up and pretend ure a ninja…

The co op is awesome 2 its like sp but wiv another person!!!

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Review

When Company just got Bad… In a Battlefield…

Battlefield: Bad Company was different. Not just its explosive destructible environment or because it was set in modern times. It was different in a way that it had such a refreshing story. A group of regular soldiers stumble upon some gold in a few creates in the middle of a war zone and realise there’s more to this war than politics. They band together and decide “Sod the war let’s try to get rich”, just like in the movie Kelly’s Heroes.

So the story’s not really anything new, but it’s much better than the usual over done ‘Stop the End of the World’ kind of screenplay.

It was one of the single players best features that it didn’t really take it self too serious and was just full of comedy. Which in my opinion is the best way the Battlefield series should be.

Shame the same can’t be said about Bad Company’s sequel.

This time around they seemed to of taken a step back for single player. The pure lack of story around the squad is what I found most annoying.
The way the story was written was no way near the same amount of detail as the first game. Bad Company’s story had a voice over of the character you portrayed who would talk during cut scenes about his feelings about joining a new squad as a replacement. It introduced you to the squad that by the end they became your band of brothers. They were written in a way which made them seem to bond with one another which added such comradery to the squad. Just the little things like Haggard & Sweetwater would complain about events happening as they unfolded as you progressed. They would both have little rock, paper, scissor battles and Haggard would go on about when he becomes rich he’d buy a Truckasaurus Rex.

Not once in the sequel is any of this mentioned. It’s as if who ever wrote the story & script never even bothered playing the first one. Sure they have a few chuckles when giving digs at Modern Warfare 2, but it’s not on par with the production values of the first. You have to finish a battle, stand still for up to twenty seconds before your squad catches up and say anything.

Even the latest trailer seems to have more in common with Bad Company than the sequel.

During the campaign you never really feel connected to a squad. Most of the time they would not seem to be there with you or actually be two steps behind. Same can be said about the enemy AI. They would aimlessly run around the environment and just aim straight at you and fire, they didn’t seem to run for cover and just became a bullet sponge to fire at.

It seems like Battlefield is going back to its old ways of adding single player far later in the development phase. That’s not to say the multiplayer isn’t awesome, but I still love my dose of single player. Not just to pass the time and to boost achievements.

The cut scenes seem to have been an added after thought too. Many scenes seem unfinished or just unpolished. For example, many facial animations would clip through the body armour or just not look right when holding an item. Even the musical score seems added on as filler. Many scenes would have a dramatic moment and at the last second add the audio cue missing the moment entirely.
The pacing of levels would seem messed up too. You would start the level with a cut scene, then walk a few feet would then start another cut scene. It’s not just once or twice, its more or less after every cut scene and became quite tiresome.

Lack of co-op in this era is still quite frustrating. Especially that most if not all but one level of the campaign has at least another friendly.

But that’s getting too picky now.

Or is it?

I’m sure it’s not in many ways because it’s more or less the industry standard now. I think it would have added that little bit more to it. The same could have been said about Borderlands, adding co-op added more life to the game.

The multiplayer however is a totally different story.

It adds much more on top of what was already a decent online shooter. It seems much more refined and adds more depth than most shooters which is refreshing. After the usual Battlefield launch teething issues with servers (or lack of), its safe to say Bad Company 2’s multiplayer is what Dice have been working none stop around the clock to get right. Everything from the maps, vehicles & weapons, to the slow & steady pacing  amount of unlock items you receive when ranking up. It’s all the little extras and refinements which makes it a much more enjoyable battlefield.

The way things are unlocked are not as fast and as common as they are on Modern Warfare. At times you would unlock too much stuff at once and not have any idea what to do with them, but on Bad Company 2 you get just the right amount of unlocks to get used to as you advance up the ranks. The multiplayer maps are well balanced too and with Frostbite Destruction 2.0 no sniper is safe for long in a building that is now fully collapse-able. It’s such a great thrill when you can’t get anywhere near the objective because the place is flooded with enemies. You just get in a tank and just blow up the building crushing all those inside!

The thing that I always come away with after playing is how much the audio really adds to the game. It’s by far one of the best I’ve heard since Half-Life 2. It seems to have such depth. It’s not just the closer the weapon, the louder it sounds. It’s the whole amount of bass from an assault rifles thunder-cracker from the other side of the map is just such shock & awesome! It adds a sort of echoing effect and ricochets all around adding much more sense of scale to the maps. With a 5.1 set-up all the channels are working overtime to allow you to hear the snap, crackle & pop as bullets fly past your head. It’s truly is fantastic!

You can also hear players shouting orders & reconnaissance when they spot enemies. Even hearing the enemy’s last yelp in the distance as you hit them with a sniper rifle. It’s all portrayed perfectly.

To sum things up Bad Company 2 is a great in-depth multiplayer experience which is a must have for any shooter fans or previous battlefield veterans alike. Just don’t expect the 6 hour or so single player campaign to make you keep going back for more, its defiantly a multiplayer orientated game.

So overall Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a fantastic addition to the franchise and narrows the gap between consoles and Pc because it’s nearly, if not as fantastic as Battlefield 2 was back in the day. It’s defiantly one of the best multiplayer games of this generation and will hopefully only be a glimpse of what Battlefield 3 has to offer.