Dark Souls

It's when you return to Dark Souls that its difference in demands and tone become most stark.

Where other games allow you to spam health potions instantaneously, Dark Souls demands you contrive the time and space to take your life giving drink lest it becomes your last.

The enemies in Dark Souls attack like their lives truly depend on it. They may not say much but their desire for survival is clear. When they kill you, they seem to swagger away, satisfied with their performance and continued existence.

The environment too offers little to relax or reassure. You're often perilously close to an almost endless drop or forced to fight in cramped conditions that seem to claw at you just as cruelly as the enemy.

Even the NPC in Dark Souls communicate in cryptic and cloaked prose that leaves you uncertain. It's a world that invites you in but never puts you at ease or makes you feel welcome.

Batman Arkham Asylum

Combat Challenges: Thoughts for the disillusioned

Metro 2033

Not any more evil than say fire

GoW 2: Pacifist's Prescription

After four rounds of Guardian a disgruntled player suggested people using a chainsaw should get another game. Perhaps he was making a point in game when he avoided hurting a soul and laid down his life 13 times. Why would people buy another game when Gears already has a chainsaw? Do people who so loathe chainsaws think they were included in the game just to handle Sires? Shotgun users have no qualms about using melee as part of their game, which is the same B button the chainsaw users use, so why all the fuss?

Don't Look Closely

Downloadable Content (DLC) used to be an exciting prospect. As time goes by it seems more an expensive disappointment. The realisation doesn't hit you at first but the main problem with DLC is it has zero resale value. Even though the amounts seem small, if you take the combined cost of the Fallout 3 DLC, it exceeded the original purchase price and yet actually represents nothing like the same value. The critical reception of the Fallout DLC also largely failed to approach that of the original. By comparison the healthy used marketplace means it's often possible to lose very little money on a retail game.

The timing of DLC is also becoming increasingly cynical. Gears of Wars 2 Snowblind and Combustible map packs originally sold for 800 points each but were included with the additional campaign in the All Fronts pack for 1600. Existing owners of these map packs were offered no concessions or rebate though on All Fronts. After initially buying the Snowblind map pack it was also frustrating that the public horde option was unavailable without the Combustible map pack. How can it be right to offer the "Icy Dead People" achievement and then offer no public way to achieve it without buying something else?

A further irritation of DLC is how it confuses games shown as complete in your achievements. Even without the poorly received "Pinnacle Station", Mass Effect is shown as complete. Oblivion however is only considered complete when "Shivering Isles" is too. Surely a game should be shown as complete when you have completed all the content you have? In theory a game could get new DLC at anytime, so can a game ever be considered complete? Will games move to and from this complete status?

The media industry wants us to think of their products just as we do those more tangible. I have no issue with that. Theft is theft. It's only reasonable then to expect that games media has a resale value and it needs to be transferable, just like tangible goods. Otherwise it needs to be priced to be disposable. I don't believe DLC is sufficiently inexpensive to be seen as disposable. A recent development has seen the introduction of downloadable retail games. Currently these are priced at full RRP, come with no manual and have no resale possibility. The large download would also have implications for those on capped ISP contracts. If this is an attempt to curb the resale of games it looks likely to fail as who would buy games under these conditions?

In the end it seems we are being played by the Advertising and Marketing people, the people Bill Hicks joked should kill themselves, so if you are, do, no seriously...

GoW 2: Chastising Chainsawing

I chainsaw people. Sometimes I chainsaw people often, sometimes too often; I know, I want shooting! I am usually though the first to berate my own laziness and erred judgement. However I don't understand the invective directed at chainsaw users. When I find myself chainsawed I blame myself for the most part.

I also don't take the view there is no skill to chainsawing, indeed chainsawing whilst maintaining a healthy kill/death ratio would require a high degree of timing and patience. Chainsawing can be often be successful when an opponent has just completed a roll, is reloading or when you have a high degree of confidence in the element of surprise. Judging and executing these scenarios efficiently and consistently is neither easy or without merit.

One final mitigation for chainsaw use is the occasional lag that sadly blights some matches. Too often firing the shotgun at point blank range doesn't have the desired effect. This sense of inconsistency and unreliability of the shotgun can lead to a greater use of the chainsaw than would otherwise be the case. Sometimes matches lag so badly I find myself with two choices, quit or chainsaw. If the game isn't even updating your shotgun ammo count, what use is it?

Next time you think of abusing a chainsaw user, why not simply be grateful your opposition is perhaps as inexperienced as their derisory moniker suggests?

GoW 2: I'm Sorry, YOUR Grenades?

I heard the leader from my team ask "where have you put my grenades?" What an odd question I thought. Firstly it was Blood Drive, so I'd done the obvious and tagged the extremes of the grenade spawn corridor and second, since when does being leader bestow ownership to power weapons? Being leader in Guardian is often a thankless task but does at least provide the moral authority to loiter in a particular area. Just because the guy had lost the race to the first grenades, they would soon respawn. Competition for the frag grenades is of course intense; so much so that I swear a queue almost formed on a Jacinto map the other day, the players must have been British (no one queues as politely as us!) My goal is as far as possible to ensure my team obtains as many of the power weapons as possible, whether this ends up being me or not. When it comes to frag grenades though, I'm happy to take whatever I find and deploy them as I see fit. Half of the fun is monitoring which locations detonate to refine my placement strategy.

GoW 2: Kill Farming

I like the new ranking system in Gears of War 2 as it gives me something to aspire to and thereby prolongs the game's longevity. However I'm not convinced the term rank is constructive since it somehow invokes a sense of superiority, when in fact it's more a reflection of how much you've played the game. Since your rank is based on points and they typically only go in one direction, eventually you will reach the top rank. Given therefore that experience does not necessarily infer ability, one has to wonder about the determination of some to gain the top rank at any cost. It's also worth noting that gaining the top rank so soon after its introduction will inevitably lead to scepticism from others because of the huge time investment needed for the achievement. There seems to be two basic methods to artificially expedite progress to the 100 rank. Firstly the gamertag itself is somehow manipulated to immediately afford the top rank. Secondly public matches can be manipulated by a team to rack up large numbers of kills and thus experience points. This technique is colloquially known as 'kill farming'.

Kill farming is morally questionable at best and is exceedingly frustrating for the victims. Thankfully it won't happen to you very often but when it does you'll soon notice things aren't quite right. A team will get close to winning a round then change tactics or they'll down your leader but not kill him off. Both are warning signs you could be in for a very long, exasperating experience. As time goes by people from your team will leave to be replaced by bots. Pleas to end the game will be met with negative responses. Since there is nothing you can do in the face of an organised kill farming team, you are left with the galling option of leaving and taking the penalty for quitting early. As an innocent victim this can be a bitter pill to swallow.

How Epic can handle this questionable behaviour is difficult. People have suggested time limits. These would only work if there was a definite outcome to a round and not a stalemate. How best to determine a victory in some match types is not immediately obvious. People have suggested the return of unranked 'player' matches. This would probably increase the time matchmaking takes and would not help any gamers who like to work towards the rank/achievements. I wonder whether the penalty could be withheld where gamers have been in a public match for a given period of time, indicating a level of determination. In short, there seems no obvious silver bullet for games that can seem like the living dead.

Kill Farming Discussion Thread
Epic Quotes
Gamerscore Corrections

GoW 2: Multiplayer team

I'm looking for people who are interested in forming some kind of informal team to horde and/or multiplayer on Gears of War 2. I deliberately refrain from using the c* word since I'm not looking for people to change their Gamertag or attend training or anything! English speakers happy to operate as a cohesive unit would be just fine. Gamertag: brittonl

GoW 2: Old School Weekend

"This weekend, Public multiplayer matches go the way of Gears 1 with 4-player squads and Smoke Grenades that don't concuss. The event runs May 22, 9 AM EST-Tuesday, May 26, 9 AM EST."

Not pleased. Stun grenades give me a chance to amble up to the helpless victim and avoid the shotgun shuffle!

World Court Review

World Court is a great old arcade PCB. Although visually showing its age, it is a thoroughly enjoyable tennis game. At first it is a struggle but with practice, particularly against the robot opponents, your game will soon improve. Where this game excels is in the control you have over your shots. Where the ball goes is a direct result of the player's position, the relationship between the racket head and ball and the timing of the shot. Yes you can hit the ball by just pressing one of the two fire buttons but to get a shot with the desired direction and power will require all those factors to be considered and applied. They are all interdependent too, so making an effort to be in the right position is useless if you swing too early or two late. Swinging early is vital to get the ball travelling at more acute angles to achieve some glorious passing shots.


The game uses two fire buttons, one for a lighter shot/lob and another for more powerful shots. Lobs and smashes are both possible, with the latter requiring excellent timing. (This is soon learnt by playing the yellow robot!) Serving too is brilliantly handled with the ability to serve hard and accurate shots with a high degree of consistency. It's even possible with some players to dive for shots at the net. Better still you'll soon learn that the dive can be contrived to make the return even more difficult! There are both male and female players all which play slightly differently. I've found that the number 4 and 5 men provide excellent players. Three different courts also provide for noticeably different playing experiences. The game offers both singles and doubles, with two humans teaming up against two computer opponents.

Soccer Brawl Review

Soccer Brawl is an intense futuristic football experience available on the Neo Geo. It takes basic five a side football and adds an arm shot and a special player with a destructive special power shot. The game offers many ways to score, from distance, at close range, from a cross, from a rebound etc. A powermeter allows you to charge the power of your kick when you have the ball and your arm shot when you don't. Arm shots can be very useful for shooting the opposition player as he is about to score or indeed before he's even received the ball! It's a very satisfying part of the game. Overhead kicks and flying headers also add to the offensive arsenal.

The game includes a basic 8 team knockout for you to play against the computer but it's the two player battles where the most enjoyment is to be had. They can quickly evolve into titanic struggles with the score flowing one way and then the other. For intense Soccer action it doesn't come much better than this. Japan and Korea are the teams of choice.