Super Meat Boy

Another post, another game.

Super Meat Boy is a single player action puzzle game where you're a little piece of meat and you have to get from point A to point B whilst maneuvering yourself around various deathtraps. The game itself is pretty simple, you got sprint jump and move, that's it. The hard part is nailing jumps, timing your run and dodging anything and everything that looks even slightly dangerous.

From what I've played so far the game's pretty decent. Sure, you can get stuck on a level for what may seem like an eternity but that's all part of the fun in my opinion. Getting a little bit further every attempt until you finally get the whole thing right is rewarding enough to make the game still enjoyable without being a pushover.

The storyline and cut scenes are pretty comical, to see a little cube of meat being all baller and trying to save his bandaged girlfriend from what appears to be a circus clown/illusionist had me laughing the first couple of times.

I don't think I'll be starting any new games in the near future so I might actually finish the story mode of something!!

Proper reviews, maybe, just maybe.

I figured that if i ever actually fully complete a game (currently playing about 5 different games all at the same time, yes, I'm that good) I might give it a proper once over. It'll probably be older and non-mainstream games that I'll review as there's plenty of other sources for reviews for the big games and doing something that's already been done 10 gajillion times doesn't really float my boat.

So stay tuned, and maybe, just maybe, a decent game review may appear here.

Gran Turismo 4

Gran Turismo 4: The Real Driving Simulator.

How true that ended up being.....

My roomate has an ancient (yes, anything 4+ years old is ancient) PS2 so I decided to get it out and play a little bit of GT4. I had played my fair share of racing games in the past including Burnout 3 and 4, Need for Speed Undergrounds and Most Wanted some other random unknown titles. Playing those games had gotten me into a certain style of racing that just doesn't translate across to GT4. In those games it was all about nothing but accelerator tap the brake to slide into and around corners whilst going from 0 to 250+ in 2 seconds.

First I had to get my B-grade license and what I thought would be some easy tutorial telling me what the accelerator etc. was turned out to be quite an ordeal. Turns out in GT4 the brake actually gets a fair bit of work for a change and the line you take into corners and the speed at which you take them can make massive differences to an overall race. After failing the first corner challenge utmost times by just throwing the car into the corner and expecting it to bend to my will I decided to take a somewhat more a conservative approach. And voila, picking the right line and speed into the corner almost acts like a slingshot out of it.

I was impressed overall by the realism of the game. Sure you can cut corners here and there and going over gravel etc doesn't seem to have any adverse effects so far but maybe GT has found the balance between being to realistic and not enjoyable and having enough realism to get the satisfaction of nailing a race/corner/passing maneuver.

Overall I would say the game takes a bit of getting used to but when you start getting the hang of it, its really quite rewarding.

Going back to RIFT

After saying to myself I'd never go back to RIFT I decided to give it one more chance to make a good impression on me. I wasn't going in with high hopes though.

 I load my character screen up, select my level 50 Cleric, enter a pvp warfront, get smashed repeatedly. I play on the defiant side and although on my server (Spitescar US) defiant have been getting better, we were still losing 3 out of 4 games. To make matters worse, healing was still boring as fuck, dps'ing was like using a glass cannon and the game I was suddenly being reminded of how much this game annoyed me.

An hour later and I was already at the end of my patience. I'd given RIFT another chance and it had disappointed me. Well at least I wont be paying subscription anymore :D

Dead Space 2

So, after finishing (kinda but not really) Shogun 2 I decided to play Dead Space 2. I cant say I'm the biggest man when it comes to jump scare games and dead space 2 is no exception. For anyone who hasn't heard of it or played it's basically just an FPS set amongst some kind of mutant human infection. But I haven't payed much attention to the storyline so far.

So chapter (level) 1 starts off with a cut scene just setting things up. I all like, chill bro, its not going to be that bad. Next thing some black dudes rescuing me when BAM. He goes down like a sack of shit due to the alien arm spike tentacle thing sticking out his chest. Next thing i know I'm being told to run for my life while all shit breaks loose behind me with screams and growls and mutant assholes everywhere i look. I make it to some door only to have one of them grab me. The games all like press "e" but I'm to busy shitting my own pants so it rips my head off and I'm back to the start. Second time through was a little easier since I was expecting it but nonetheless, more shitting of the pants. I got the alien this time with some frantic pressing of "e". One fraction of the game down. Pants full of shit. So much more to go. That pretty much sets the scene for the majority of chapter one with jump scares left right and center.


I eventually reach what appears to be some boss and this guy is ugly as fuck. Big ol' tentacle hanging down from beneath him and arms as big as houses. But with some clever stasis play I get him down. So he's dead on the ground and  walk over to him when BAMMMMMMMMMMMMM HOLY FUCK his arm lashes out at me nearly blowing my IRL heart out of my chest.

After that I pretty much said fuck this shit and bailed.