Here we are again, the start of another year and another decade, and so it’s time to look back at the year that’s passed. As with 2008 I’ve decided to do a proper look back at my gaming for the past twelve months: so all the games of 2009 whether they were started, finished or just dabbled with for five minutes over the course of the year.

Here’s a run down of those titles (organised by platform) where I got to with each of them and a little comment on the game/my progress with it.

Xbox 360

Assassin’s Creed II
Status:
Completed (100%)
Comments:
I was a fan of the first Assassin’s Creed and the sequel doesn’t disappoint. They’ve taken the mechanics and gameplay from the first game and wrapped it in a much more structured story that leads you from mission to mission, with more variety in them. There’s plenty to do on the side too and it’s pretty much all an absolute blast.

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Status:
Completed (Normal, 100% Completion)
Comments:
What a fantastic game; check out my mini-review. I’d like to, at some point, try a run through on hard.

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It’s not been a bad time for gaming recently; between the delights of various games like Uncharted 2, Modern Warfare 2, Brutal Legend and some other games ending in 2 there’s been plenty to sink my teeth into, and more besides. However, thanks to the commercial powerhouse that is Modern Warfare 2 this year’s Q4 flood was actually reasonably tame, but it also means that early 2010 is looking a lot more busy than you’d normally expect.

And so as I look over the most recent ‘coming soon’ list from my favoured retailer I figure now is a good time to look ahead to 2010 and the games that are on my watch list, and the few that have already received pre-orders. As per usual some of these may not turn out to be any good, but all of them have captured my attention somehow:

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http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/12/microsoft-difference-between-cheat-exploit-none-banned.ars

I’m sure by now everyone knows that Modern Warfare 2’s online is plagued by some serious glitches, the most famous of which is the Javelin glitch, causing a player to instantly explode violently when killed, usually destroying his attacker and possibly anyone else in the area.

Both Infinity Ward and Microsoft have responded to the prevalence of this problem. IW has mentioned they’re working on a patch for the problem, and Microsoft has announced that they will start banning users from the service temporarily on a case-by-case basis until the fix is applied.

Am I the only one who is rubbed the wrong way by this? Continue reading this article »

Modern Warfare 2 was always going to have a lot to live up to, after all it’s the sequel to one of the finest shooters to grace the gaming landscape in recent times – the mighty Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare – a game I was more than a little enamoured with and put a good number of hours into. Modern Warfare 2 is also one of the most hyped games of this generation, even more so than the likes of Grand Theft Auto 4 or Halo 3. Such self-aggrandising comes with the marketing territory, but even so, the hype-machine behind Modern Warfare 2 was so great that it couldn’t help but add considerably to the already massive weight of expectation; certainly if you’re going to go around branding your game “The most anticipated game ever” then you better be able to deliver.

To determine whether or not it delivers for yourself will certainly take some investment as the game’s three core modes – single-player, multiplayer and newly added co-operative – will, between them, happily eat up a good many hours of your time, the latter two especially so. But before delving into the time-sink multiplayer aspects of the game I felt it best to start with the single-player.

Welcome to boot camp…

The gameplay is as fast and frantic as ever and will feel immediately familiar to anyone who’s played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. As with that game it isn’t shy about throwing a fair few enemies your way and on the harder difficulties they’ll quickly put an end to anyone who leaves themselves exposed for too long. Thankfully though the infinitely spawning enemies of old are gone and now cautiously taking out all the enemies will leave you able to move up without fear of another swarm of guys appear just as you step out of cover. However, this doesn’t mean it’s an easy ride as the enemy AI can be quite crafty moving up to flank or get behind you at times, which keeps you on your toes.

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This weekend I found myself heading to London town to check out the last day of the Eurogamer Expo and take a look at a number of upcoming titles that were there. It was a pretty good day out all in all and there were a bunch of great games to get hands on with, including a few surprises.

Given tickets for the expo were sold out I was expecting a mammoth queue upon arrival, and whilst there was certainly a sizeable line outside the Old Billingsgate it went down pretty quickly and before too long we were in. In fact the crowds weren’t at all bad, and whilst there was clearly a good number of people in there, nothing felt too crowded or took too long to get a good look at.

3D Gaming

We also took the time during the day to check out a presentation by Nvidia about 3D gaming. I’ve got to say I’m not at all convinced by it. They showed off Need for Speed: Shift and I was at a loss to really spot the difference. In fact, the only time I spotted the 3D look to it was when the guy brought up the in-game menu to quit. They also showed a bit of Batman: Arkham Asylum, which again looked no real different to the game I’ve already played.

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Once again it’s been another set of busy months for me on a number of fronts and so effort for writing full reviews for those games helping keep me busy has somewhat gone out of the window. However, here’s another quick review blast for those games that have been occupying my time recently:

WipEout HD: Fury

You’ve got to love the guys at Studio Liverpool, not only did they deliver one of the finest examples of a download game in the gorgeous form of WipEout HD, but then they went and effectively doubled the size of the game for ridiculously cheap price. WipEout HD: Fury is an expansion to the original game which adds a bunch of new game modes, a number  of new tracks, new crafts and a campaign just a few events shy of matching the original game’s own campaign mode. All of the new game modes play with the core mechanics in interesting ways and none of them is a letdown, with  Zone Battle possibly winning out as the best new addition. If you own WipEout HD then this is a complete no brainer, get it; if you don’t own the original, well now is the time to go grab both excellent parts for significantly less than a new retail game (you really would be a fool not to).

Quantum of Solace

This was picked up cheap, and you know what it’s alright. The story mode is reasonably solid, no utterly terrible missions, but then nothing overly fantastic too. For the most part it’s a solid shooter experience wrapped up in a nice bit of Bond setting, which is no bad thing. Certainly I’ll give them points for the stealth/spy type aspects of the game. You can pretty much ignore doing it that way and play all-guns-blazing, but there’s a lot of satisfaction to be had from taking people out quietly. Can’t help but feel though that in a more capable company’s hands it could have been something rather amazing, but it was reasonably fun all told. One thing I will say though, I’m not quite sure what Treyarch did, but when you make scanned character models of Eva Green and Olga Kurylenko look ugly then something is not right with the world.

Trials HD

Trials HD is the absolute definition of ‘Just one more go’ gameplay. I’d never played any of the Trials games before, but this looked fun and after a dabble with the demo found myself picking it up, and subsequently finding it very hard to put down; up until the point where I got to the Extreme levels that is, and the frustration levels went from ‘tough, but fun’ to outright annoyance. Great little game though, that looks amazing too.

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So the new trend for a lot of big titles seems to be to re-release the game about a few months to a year after the game’s original release. A few examples of this include Star Wars: The Force Unleashed – Ultimate Sith Edition and LittleBigPlanet: Game of the Year Edition. Both of these games are re-releases of games that came out last year, but they add content that was not found in the original game. Most of this content is stuff that can be found as DLC on the Xbox Live Marketplace or PlayStation Store, but now the companies behind these games have decided to add some new content to the game, content that’s not available anywhere else.

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One of my absolute fondest memories of Christmas morning was back in December of 1990.  I can’t recall if it was my first or last present – if it was last, it was not due to my own choice, I’m sure – but I can always remember how it felt.

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What a difference five years has made on the PC gaming world. In that time frame, many gaming developers (including Electronic Arts) have written off PC gaming as “dead” or “dying”, and have chose to focus their businesses more on the console market. In a move that has drawn a great deal of ire from many people (myself included), EA has all but shut down production of their Sports games for PC. (Only two titles remain in place for now: FIFA and FIFA Manager.) But, like finally moving out of your girlfriend’s apartment after she cheated on you, this wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back. EA cheated on me years ago when they stopped making their PC versions the best versions of their games. That distinction has now passed on to the console versions.

But instead of sitting around, moping about it, I’ve moved on to a new girlfriend: 2K Sports (previously Sega Sports). 2K has been the girl-next-door for several years now, only now moving in for the strike with EA out of the picture. While reviewers have generally been quick to prefer EA’s products to 2K’s, I’ve generally found myself enjoying 2K’s a great deal more (specifically the NFL and NBA games).

2005 was a turning point in the sports/video-game world as the NFL and MLB both signed exclusive deals with the two video game kingpins. And while this meant the regrettable end of both the NFL2K and MVP Baseball (with an MLB license, that is) franchises, and meant the continuing and furthering stagnancy of EA’s Madden franchise, 2K’s MLB franchise has free-reign for several years. It hasn’t been perfect, and this year’s edition, MLB2K9, is no different. But it is still the best baseball simulation since MVP Baseball 2005.

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On September 9, 2009, retailers around the world will open boxes of The Beatles: Rock Band and dispense its hotly anticipated goodness into the hands of thousands of fans of the band and the music rhythm game genre. The game will likely be feted as the pinnacle of nearly a half-decade’s worth of game devoted to playing plastic instruments to emulate various songs.

And then, where will we go from there?

Believe it or not, it has only been four years since Harmonix unleashed the now wildly-popular (and now Neversoft developed) Guitar Hero series, and just two years since Electronic Arts took the next step and brought (most of) the rest of the band into the fold. Yet, as things tend to be with games that see sequels made annually, the genre is quickly growing stale, aided by a relatively-shallow “good music” pool, an ever-increasing downloadable content service, and the finite potential of the genre, which is contingent on “good music” being available and more elaborate ways to allow players to feel like they’re playing a real instrument without them actually playing a real instrument.

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