Resident Evil 6 : Leon's Campaign

I remember playing Resident Evil 2 when I was in Primary school one halloween and I vivdly remember not being able to sleep or keep my bowels and urinary tract from staying in a position that wouldn't require that I sit on the toilet for something like 3 days.

 So then, Resident Evil 6, a game where the logo looks like a Giraffe getting a blowjob (Look carefully and you will see it plain as day, and then never be able to unsee it) a game which has a terrific gaming pedigree but will that grandure come out in this game?

In short, sort of.

The long answer is that Leon's campaign is very good in terms of storyline and pacing, going back to the roots of Resident Evil, but the rest of the game (Which will be in my next review) is lackluster, mediocre and slightly annoying.

So then here is the review of Leon and Helena's campaign, the one campaign that actually feels like a survival horror game in a game that is supposed to be a survival horror franchise, I personally feel that Capcom should drop the Resident Evil franchise and start a fresh, namely because I feel that Capcom are flogging a dead horse and should really just start a fresh before their rut gets any deeper.

You play as one of these 2

Leon's campaign feels very smooth and well written (as well as a Capcom game can be written anyway), and plays the tension in the game very well, by doing the same thing that made it great in it's earlier, less convaluted outings into the world of video gaming.

Leon's campaign uses tension very well in this campaign, (Until the graveyard but baby steps here) moving through the game actually feels quite daunting, unlike in Resi 5 where it felt quite easy, and due to the lack of ammo spread around the levels, you actually feel like this is not a 3rd person shooting game, but actually something that you have to SURVIVE.

The usage of zombies however was less expertly handled, not that I am saying that there were too many, but, if they had given me more ammo then it would have been fine, or if they had reduced the amount of zombies to make the game more of a psychological survival horror, then that would have been fine, but leaving you with no ammo, 5 zombies and Leon's slightly chunky 'can-can-kick' was a bowel movement extroadinare.

Now I understand better than most people what the survival horror genre requires of me, it required me to think, conserve ammo, don't get hurt and most importantly, piss myself in a corner if things get too hectic, but not giving us any sign in a boss battle that we aren't meant to try and kill them yet, or we are supposed to do something is not good design work because we spend about 15 minutes trying to hurt the big bastard of the level, only to find out that we were meant to run down an alley instead of wasting all of our ammunition.

I also prefer Helena as a character to Piers, Sheva or Sherry Birkin, namely because of the fact that during my playthroughs of all the numbered resident evil games, and having had a 'friend' along for the ride in those games, Helena was found to be the best companion I have ever had because she NEVER WALKED OUT IN FRONT OF MY FIRING LINE OR GOT IN MY FUCKING WAY.

But I digress, the combat felt very streamlined, the ability to move and shoot at the same time is very nicely handled, as is the ability to do combat roles and sprint, and when you hold the left trigger whilst sprinting you perform a nice slide which you can use to set up your targets in interesting ways.

So, in conclusion, Resident Evil 6: Leon's campaign is an above average shooter but it is let down by some bad design work, not being told what to do or whether a boss fight is an actual boss fight.

In conclusion, Pros and Cons.

Pros

-Good mechanics for shooting, and the movement controls are quite nicely streamlined to make it feel like you are a special agent.
-Weapons handle and feel like real weapons, unlike how weapons have had a tendency to feel when playing other resident evil games

Cons 

-The story isn't exactly stellar, and to be fair I could see the plot twist in Leon's campaign and in terms of Ada from about 25 minutes into the storyline.
-I still maintain that having a partner doesn't exactly help with the whole 'Survival Horror' stuff, because I felt that having a secong person there made all the puzzles (If you could call them that) arbitratry, and the horror element was diminished.

If you liked this game you might also like

-Resident Evil 4
-Splinter Cell Conviction
-Gears of War

Game Of Thrones

If you haven't got the first season of Game of Thrones on DVD go and buy it now.

I'm being serious, minimize this post (I won't mind), go out, buy it and watch it...actually close this post because the episodes are about an hour long each and you don't want the electric bill running up that high and I don't want you people bitching at me.

So then, Game of Thrones season 1 is based of the best selling novel "A song of ice and fire" by George R.R. Martin, and details the conflicts, diplomacy and general backstabbing in the land of Westeros and surrounding areas as they vie for power, territory and sex.....And no I am not joking about the sex part.

One of the first things you will notice from the very first episode is that, there are lots of characters, don't worry about keeping up with their names at first, you'll soon start remembering them because each character has a decent amount of screen time and is very well rounded with personality, flaws and great characteristics.

For those of you with some knowledge of England during the Medieval period and era slightly before, Game of Thrones might look slightly familiar, and by slightly familiar, I mean it looks like someone decided to make 'Medieval England the drama', even stuff like "The Wall" which keeps out the White Walkers, reminds me of Hadrians Wall with a Hollywood twist

Apart from the huge assortment of characters, that is not really much of a bad point because the length of the first season alone you will allow you to get used to the different characters and figure out their motivations and what they want to do in their own personal spheres of influence.

The camera work and plot direction are also fantastic as it actually makes you feel rather engaged with what is going on and the plot arcs also draw you in so that the scenarios and scenes don't feel bland or monotonous, which with a cast this big and a place as big as Westeros to put your characters in is always a good thing.

Character development in any series is always crucial, and Game of Thrones is no different, though I imagine that because the series is based off the books, the producers and writers can sigh deeply because it is already written down for them, although I've never read the books so they could have changed most of the back stories for all of the characters and I would be completely unaware.

All in all, Game of Thrones is a fantastic series and one that I would thoroughly recommend anyone who enjoys; Drama, intruige, sex, violence, politcal drama, backstabbing, sex and medieval style dramas.
I would also recommend it to anyone who enjoys watching HBO drama's because from the startling highs of Oz, The Wire, Rome and Deadwood comes another entry to that list.

Final Statement Review 

Pros
-Wide variety of characters
-Believable Motivations
-Interesting plot and character arcs
-Beautiful set designs

Cons
-Too many people at the beginning to really get to grips with unless you are watching it on DVD and it has your full attention
-Certain characters who begin annoying will soon grow to grate quite harshly

If you liked this then you might also like

-Deadwood
-Rome
-The Wire

Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty

One of the first games I ever played on the computer (Windows 95 feels like a lifetime ago) was Warcraft 2 Battlenet edition, (something that my parents were slightly pissed off with at the time) Warcraft 2 was a fanastic game, and was probably the reason I got into real time strategy games so much....that and I developed the train of thought to make people do things for me because I know best.

Starcraft 2 is a realtime strategy game in a similar vein to Command and Conquer and Warcraft (Well warcraft is a Blizzard game what do you expect?), which means that your role is that of a general, emperor or angry man with good people skills.

In the story campaign for Wings of Liberity you take the position of Jim Raynor, leader of Raynor's Raiders, a group of freedom fighters who are trying to usurp the leader of the Terran empire, I like to think of them like the Browncoats from Firefly for about 2 minutes, and then I get misty eyed.

So, the controls are fairly simple for any command and conquer or warcraft veteran, you can move the camera using camera using the W.A.S.D. keys, or moving the mouse cursor to the side of the screen, hotkeys take a while to get used to because of the different buildings and soldiers you get and you can zoom in to see the action up close and personal.

Starcraft feels very polished and well developed and all 3 races are well balanced and each has their own unique playing style (see ZERG RUSH!) each with its own personality and little details I.E. the mech drivers who look like metal heads and sound like Arnie.

The Campaign takes place years after the original Starcraft, with the Zerg disappearing into relative obscurity and the Protoss doing their own thing which leaves Raynor to try and overthrow Arcturus Mensk because of their belief that the Dominion is just as bad as the old government that they helped overthrow, pretty much 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss'.

You play as Jim Raynor.
This hunk of manliness

Kerrigan makes her reappearance as the Queen of Blades for the Zerg during one of the early missions which leades Raynor to try and kill her because of what she has done, and you also get to see into Raynor's personality in terms of how he has reacted to all the things that have happened in the first starcraft and all the resulting occurances.

That is to say: Badly.

There isn't much I can say about the plot that won't contain spoilers, but it is a very worthwhile game and will undoubtedly give RTS fans hours of joy playing, I know I always end up coming back to it when I'm on the train or have some free time.

Although having to make a Battlenet username and password as soon as you install the game and having to tell the game that you want to play on your own without the internet on does get tedious after a while if you're like me and don't really like human beings

Final Statement Reviews

Pros
-Very slick and streamlined control system and interface
-The graphics are very nice even on lower settings.
-Very good characters and above average storyline

Cons
-Battlenet pisses me off
-Levels can get samey, but that can be said of any RTS game
-Some characters can be a little over the top 
-BATTLENET!!!!

If you liked this game you might also like

Command and Conquer, pick one any one, personally I recommend Red Alert 2
Warcraft 3
Sins of a Solar Empire

Hellblazer: Original Sins

John Constantine: the laughing magician, the last of the Newcastle Crew, lead singer of Mucous Membrane, con man and an all around Bastard.

Hellblazer has been one of the best and one of the longest running comic book series that DC has produced, only being beaten by the big 3 (Batman, The big blue boyscout and Wonder Woman), it has had some of the best writing, and is by a large gap definitely one of my favourite comic book series'.

Original Sins is written by Jamie Delano, and chronicles issues 1 to 9 of his (mis)adventures through Thatcherite Englad.

Constantine (Con-stan-TINE, not teen) is a character who speaks very close to my heart, he's British (Always a good start for me) a realist, loner, chain smoker, drinker and a keen user of the silver tongue, all of which make me want to pick up the trades that I have and watch the shit hit the fan.

Original Sins as a trade paperback sums constantine up very well in my opinion, it gets to the heart of the character, it shows you what makes him tick and gives us his first (and also one of his longest lasting) antagonist, Nergel, who shows how adept he is at controlling people, even someone as crafty and as unpredictable as Constantine.

It also shows us what lengths Constantine is willing to go to to save his own skin, and also save others, which can be seen in issues 1+2, with the demise of Gary Lester.

 The artwork and colouring in this trade feel a little dated at the start (though what do you expect it was done in 1988) but it still holds up well, there aren't points when I'm reading it and I start to question the artists mental stability when it comes to anatomy (See this image of Captain America by Rob Liefeld)

The internal monologue that John gives the reader is both witty and darkly cynical, which to be honest, if you don't use those 2 words to describe him then you're not doing it right, but it also gives us a glimpse into his own slightly cracked psyche.

Final review section

Pros
-Interesting and believable characters
-Well rounded story arc's
-Fantastic supporting cast with presonal flaws and foibles
-Great writinga and long lasting artwork that still holds up by todays standards.

Cons
-.....it ends?
-.....it costs money, that's definitely one
-.....you can't have very good sex with it?

If you liked this, you might also like

-Sandman Mystery Theatre
-The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
-Starman, mainly because Jack Knight has the same "I'm not a hero" thing that Constantine does.

Sins of a Solar Empire

I have been a huge Real Time Strategy fan since I played Command and Conquer : Red Alert Retaliation on the Playstation 1....which any gaming enthusiast can tell you was far too long ago to remember, since then however I have changed to games like Company of Heroes, the Dawn of War franchise, Medieval 2 total war and Sins of a Solar empire to name just a few.

Sins of a Solar Empire, for those who haven't played it, is a 4X RTS game, it is in the same vein as Civilisation, in that, you are tasked to; EXpand, eXplore, eXploit and eXterminate your enemies, although this particular game is a RTS set in space...which pretty much instantly makes it better in my mind, and also a fair amount quicker.

Unrivalled Scale is quite correct when looking at this game, playing multiplayer against 2 of my friends and a couple of AI players you can have multiple solar systems to travel between and fight over which took a minimum of 5 hours (And this is only because one of my friends and I decided to turn on our other friend and call it a day).

The learning curve for this game is fairly steep, but I found that the small selection of tutorials were more than adequate, and the game let me develop my own tactical thought process for this game instead of trying to do a sort of crash course in strategic theory which would have left most players confused.

Very, VERY steep learning curve in this game.

In most 4X games graphical quality takes a back seat to gameplay, and this is no exception to that general rule, though that doesn't mean that this is by any stretch of the imagination an Ugly game, in fact that is quite far from the truth, as the rendering on the ships and constructs are fantastic, as is the designs of the suns or planets which all have little details that you wouldn't expect from many games.

Due to the expansive nature and extreme size of maps in this game, the use of strategy and tactics is key, I once split my armada in half before sending them to 2 different planets, both of which joined by interspace 'motorway' to a planet I wanted to attack, I chose both fleets and told them to attack as one, allowing me to make a strategic outflanking manoeuvre.

There really isn't much of a story for this game, it feels more like the old Battlefield games, in fact in Sins of a Solar Empire, there isn't actually a story mode, the story can be summed up as 'They all hate each other for arbitrary reasons.'

Final Review

Pros
-Massive Maps
-Allows easy use of tactics
-Great Multiplayer combat

Cons
-No story mode
-Steep Learning Curve
-Give yourself about a day to play a game of this because you will spend shit loads of time on one map without realising

If you enjoy this you may also enjoy- 

-Galactic Civilisation 2
-Dawn of War
-Starcraft 2
-Civilisation 4

Avengers Dissassembled

Everything that has happened in the Marvel Comic's universe for the past few years; the Civil War, House of M, The Superhero registration act, all of these occurances can be traced back to Avengers Dissassembled.

The Plot

I am a huge Brian Michael Bendis fan, not just because he got me into Daredevil, or because he tried to help bring Moon Knight back into the public view, but because of the fact that his stories have an ability to affect me and because of the way that he can humanise even the most intimidating and powerful human/alien being.

If you were to try and summarise this Avengers story in 1 sentence, I think that the best way to describe it is "Scarlet Witch goes crazy, here's how everyone reacts."

And a great deal of respect to Bendis with this because he actually makes characters act believeably in this kind of a situation, where the only point where people actually realise how fragile Wanda Maximoff's mental state is, is when Dr. Stephen Strange (The Sorcerer Supreme of Earth) turns to them and says that 'this is her fault and this is why', especially when he goes through some of Wanda's backstory, some things that even her best friends didn't know, and shows them the harsh truth.

Of course there are big fights in this trade, but I always think that a comic should have a deeper meaning than "Oh look Parallax is on the horizon lets go kick him." and this is one of those comics where if you were to remove all of the fight scenes in the trade, then it would still work as a story, a story where a group of friends are freaking out about what is happening around them, only to be told by the one person they were hoping could stop it all, that one of their closest friends and confidant's had done all this without even realising.

The Art

David Finch is one of my favourite artists, alongside Steve Dillon, Alex Maleev and Leandro Fernández, and the artwork in Avengers Dissassembled is possibly one of the best pieces of art I have ever seen, I found myself becoming more enthralled with the story, not just because of the plot, but also because of Leandro's art work.

Opinion

After having read through the first 2 parts of this review you could make the assumption that I couldn't find anything wrong with this story line...which isn't actually true.

Whilst I am a big fan of Bendis' writing and Fernández's art work, I think that the way that Bendis constructed the story could have done with a greater dealer of suspense compared to the explosions, gunfire and general death that are present almost from the offset.

Fernández's art work was fantastic as always and the fight scenes were masterfully done in regards to how gritty and brutal he made the fighting feel, though his way of making superhero's and superheroines and even villain's seem like they could quite their job and walk into FHM, Maxim or GQ magazine irks me a little.

Final Statement Review

Pros
-Great Art
-Intruiging story line
-Nice plot twists.

Cons
-Every person is a model
-Not very much in the way of suspense or drama

If you enjoy this you may also enjoy -

-Avengers the Initiative.
-House of M
-Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev