GameAbuser » First Impressions

StokEd [Xbox 360 First Impression]

Neil Sweeney — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:59:03 +0000

Took a while to get StokEd on to European shores, not sure why, but who cares as it’s here now and I’m able to give my First Impression (before the review of course). I may seem a bit excited and you know why? It’s because there isn’t much in the way for decent snowboarding games to come out. When Shaun White came out I was disappointed at the PS3/Xbox 360 counter-part, but the Wii version was solid enough despite it being very arcade style much like Amped. I enjoyed Amped, but I did want something more in the way of realism. And before that it was only SSX for me although there was Cool Boarders on PSone and 1080 Snowboarding for the N64… Snowboarding Kids? That was like Mario Kart for snowboarding and it just didn’t work for me.

So here we have a snowboarding game that opts for the realism rather than the arcade style taking to it similar controls that Skate uses. You could say it stole the flick controls from Skate, but this is only one move, which is the ollie in both respects, and that’s it. Of course you can’t do the same tricks on a snowboard as you can do on a skateboard as your feet are strapped in – don’t be fooled by SSX. So all you can do is flick the right stick up to jump up. Once in the air you do the logical step of grab the board using the triggers; right trigger for right hand grab, left for left hand and both for both hands. Simple.

All sounds easy, but the first play though you are introduced to a tutorial that does make it all nice and simple to pull off, but once you are dropped onto the mountain you realise that there is a lot more to contend with and it all goes to pot. Sounds like this should suck, but it’s depending what you are about. See, this is what real snowboarding is about that it’s difficult to string stuff together so you have to choose what you do wisely, and if you can do them is another question!

When you get the tricks down, it feels totally worth it!

StokEd comes across as something you need to practice with and be patient before you can start to be super awesome and cool, stomping pickle reverts and busting fab 540s (sic. The Simpsons). That maybe not for everybody, but then again car racing games that show realism may not be for everybody but they do appeal for a mass market. There is instant satisfaction to be honest from the first 2 hours I played of StokEd; the fact that you pulled off an awesome move is always a good feeling and that what keeps you playing. I suppose the real question is does it get better or does this appeal run it’s course quickly?

To give a quick idea though and somewhat of a quick comparison, StokEd is better than Shaun White on the PS3/Xbox 360 initally and Shaun White isn’t that bad, but wasn’t that good either. So StokEd is getting a good run already.

Dead Space Extraction [Wii First Impression]

Neil Sweeney — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:24:29 +0000

Successful Sci-Fi Survival Horror romp turned Sci-Fi On-Rails Horror romp; not always the best sounding turn of events but that’s not to say it is really? I don’t think so, it’s a little bit of a closed door direction for any game to turn from something that was fairly free roaming (as much as you can on a ship in space) to something where by you are not controlling movement just simply pointing and clicking things dead.

The cool difference in last years hit, Dead Space (on PS3 and Xbox 360) was that in most typical horror games where you shoot the enemies dead, it was by shooting them in the head; this was due to the fact that before you were fighting off zombies. But these are weird beastie things you are fighting off that don’t die when they have no head… they carry on. So what is the next logical step to kill something that you can’t kill? Sever them limb-from-limb… and Dead Space Extraction carries that on.

It make sense to do a whole new spin on the On-Rails Shooter genre with Dead Space Extraction, much like Dead Space did with Survival Horror in general, putting it into space (though films have done this, gaming seemed to be in the dark still). So rather than just go in and head shoot everything you see moving, you go in and server limbs off everything that wants you dead.

"Either they'll kill me or I kill me? I'm not letting them have the fun!"

Dead Space Extraction on the off set seems like it can be a good game, although starting a touch slow in the first chapter making me think maybe I should hit the difficulty setting up a touch, but the second chapter picks up a bit and so does the difficulty. There is a lot of story from the get-go and I suspect people new to Dead Space may feel a little lost as to what the hell is going on. Those who have played the game and finished it will feel nostalgia when you first start.

I will be playing the game through with just the standard Wii-mote setup (so no Wii Zapper or Hand Cannon), I am feeling a little bit of the fool at the moment as it all seems a little point and click. But there is an addictive factor that wants to pull me back in. But no doubt I’ll probably end up getting a “gun” attachment before I finish the story!

I’ve got a good feeling about this as the initial play is enjoyable and no noticeable issues have come apparent to me. This should be a good romp!

WET [PS3 First Impression]

Neil Sweeney — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:36:26 +0000

So playing through the first 30 minutes of a game you can normally feel how it will progress into something even if later it surprises you. But Bethsedas new IP, WET, makes me think this is trying to screw with my mind!

I played the demo previous to the full game and that’s pretty much what I’ve played here in my first impression (slight difference in pacing and layout of the levels), but in a demo you forgive it for what ever it may throw at you as it is early code and you didn’t pay for it so if it breaks in the first minute of playing it, you can’t really have a go at the devs as it’s a game that hasn’t been play tested 100% yet. Now the demo of WET plays exactly the same as the review code I got (gameplay and graphic wise), and this is very strange. The game is fun to play, reminds me of Max Payne if it was written and directed by a drunk Quentin Tarantino in the 70s.

That’s a good thing; on the base line the game is fun so far, shooting bad dudes like a true woman motherfucker (yes, that was needed) with dual pistols and a very tasty kitana; but technically the game play feels slightly flawed at this point. It’s the moving round mainly. The rest of the game play is good, so diving, wall running, sliding and chopping with your sword are all fun, but running from A-B feels somewhat like a forgotten mechanic. The turning circle is too tight. One part you are jumping from fire-escape to fire-escape while taking out some dudes at the same time, the main issue I had was executing a straight jump from one side to the other. Why was it an issue? It was due to not being straight enough, so I lined myself up to the other side, flick the analog to the right/left a touch and I don’t get enough clearance to jump the gap. Balls!

As I said, the game is fun, but I worry about the long term gameplay in later levels, bearing in mind the first levels are typically a training ground for you to get a grip of what you need to do to achieve anything in the game.

Fuel [Xbox 360 First Impression]

Neil Sweeney — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:40:26 +0000

I’m not one for racing games in a realistic sense; to be honest, the last realistic racing game I played was Grand Turismo on the PlayStation. My only recent fortry into racing games has been arcade ones like Mario Kart Wii and Ridge Racer on the PSP so they aren’t much to go on other than fun factor rather than simulation. But Fuel interested me due to the fact that it’s in the Gunniess Book of World Records for “Biggest in-game environment” with 5,000² miles of terriane to play on! Took be about an hour last night to travel 100 miles across a very small part of the map.

So I start playing Fuel last night and I must say, it’s not bad. I found it a little easy to start with so I can imagin that more experienced racing fans might want to start racing on the highest difficulty setting for any sort of a challenge. You can play “easy”, “experienced” or “legend”; easy and experienced I won the races first time playing them, the very first time I played one I got an achievement for taking no damage to my verchial, but going to legend I had to play through twice before I won apart from the bike race that I won first time without any fuss. Easy so far, but I suppose this could be more due to getting you into the game rather than any challenge to start off with.

I found the game world a little bland. I am only in a little corner of the world at the moment, but with no real landscape difference apart from trees, road and off-road, there isn’t much to feast your eyes on. Also, the claim to a 40km (or mile) draw distance maybe true, but I noticed a some trees popping up in my view.

At the moment, only one thing has annoyed me; be it maybe a small thing but with how the Xbox 360 reads DVDs too fast for it’s own good I wonder why there is this issue. The load screens are too long! May not be such a big thing but as I said it took me a hour last night to travel about 100 miles and no load screens, but when you are doing a race and you want to restart or do the next level of a race, you are treated to, what feels like, a minute long load screen with this annoying guitar flat guitar riff. I will time this properly when I come to the full review but to even feel like a minute isn’t the best thing in the world.

If anybody has played this installed on the Xbox 360′s HDD or tried it on the PS3 and see what the difference is. I would install it on the HDD but I got about 2.1 GB of space [anybody want to donate a 120GB HDD?] so I can’t really, and also I like to review games as they should be in regards to the default of a particular system meaning installing a game onto the HDD of a 360 but a PS3 is fine as they are required.

It is a pleasant enough experience and I think I might get a some what enjoyable experience out of it. My only worries being the load screen getting to me and that the races might get a bit repetitive, I mean, there are only so may baron landscape you can have right?

[update]

Okay, I said 100 miles I must of travelled… turns out to only be 30. Still took an hour!

Ghostbusters: The Video Game [PS3 First Impression]

Neil Sweeney — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:48:31 +0000

How often is it that when loading up a game on the Playstation 3 that I just leave it on the disc selection on the XMB? Never, but when it plays the Ghostbusters theme tune I just sit there and let it play away!

I’m going to try and keep this short and snappy; never before have I play a game that just made me smile while playing it. Not just talking smiling due to humor, but on many different levels.

It’s awesome to see the opening credits of a movie game that includes the original cast of the movie (all 4 Ghostbusters are here); and we aren’t talking a tie-in to a movie, but rather the sequel to the 2 previous films. Also, the fact the game was written by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd you know the story isn’t going to lack. although, some maybe disappointed in that you don’t play as one of the original but a fifth, new, member known as “kid” or “the rookie” (Dr. Venkman doesn’t want to get personal with names). So far, the new member hasn’t alter the comedy balance at all, but rather added somebody new to throw jokes off of.

At this point I’m finding there is a lot to track in this game with regards to doing the collectables (using the PKE meter on various objects, ghosts and scenery) and the standard flow of gameplay but I’m quickly picking up how to achieve all the goals I want to do and play the game unhindered.

The controls are simple enough, though you will need to go through the tutorials (that are forced) as the game does follow the films closes in that sense and that means not crossing the beams!

I must say, and it maybe a little early to say in a first impression but it is a first impression, this is going to do the Ghostbusters films a lot of justice and could possible be the missing third film. There is a lot of fun in this and it was hard to put down after 2 hours of playing to write this, so as first impressions go this really has woo me into playing!

Expect a review very soon.

Prototype [PS3 First Impression]

Neil Sweeney — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:31:49 +0000

I want to try something here, I want to almost pre-review a game (rather than preview) of my first impressions. What this should hopefully allow me to do is pick up a game and give my first reactions to playing it. This isn’t nessarly the view of the game as a whole so shouldn’t be gaged on a purcahse, but this is the point of a game that settles the mood for the rest of it, and espically with rental purchases, decides if somebody will pruchase the game, play through the rest of the game, or just dump it. Let see if this will work!

When I first saw the videos come out about Prototype, I was hooked, and I think I was more so hooked on it than inFamous. It reminded me a lot of The Darkness in story and style; you play somebody who can manipulate his body in a dark way; you’re not quiet human, but you still are; you are the sort-of bad guy and you are fighting against the bad guys. So to put this idea into a sandbox gameplay was awesome.

I now find myself dissapointed…

First stepping into the gameplay, you start in the middle of a chaotic battle in New York City between civillians, mutants, zombies and military personnel. Your aim it to get Time Square to find the commanding officer, but on the way there you are given tutorials on how to use various abilities by killing the personnel, mutants and crushing a few tanks. All a bit confusing as I was told the story started waking up in a morge, but play on I did; finding this a bit too easy.

You eventually meet up with the commander and “consume” him, where after a brief cut-scene you are thrown back a few weeks to the morge.

Now this play on time may not seem bad in any way, it’s a good way to setup the story; but the issue is when you play the story at point where you are most powerful and you are thrown back to where you know nothing of your ability and have to run-away/take on the military. You straight away feel weak, and this ruined a lot of the game straight away!

Why would I want to start then lose all these abilities straight away? It’s not a great gameplay mechanic at all. This where the whole Metal Gear Solid play of “go in with nothing” works really well; you start of doing your best to survive, and then you slowly find new weapons and feel achievement. Here, it’s like I played the game and got all the abilities only to suffer a powercut and lost all my progress to then work for where I was again sans-fun.

Another thing on first impression is that the world feels very lifeless and dull for a number of reasons.

This is New York, but it only felt like New York when looking at the map and being in Time Square, apart from that, it was generic. So running through the city and getting a feel for the game, I found the world to be bland. What is worse is after playing something like inFamous, you are expecting a lot more; that spoils it for you. I can feel myself later on in the game relying 90% on the map to get around where I should be able to via the sights of the city.

Another issue on the lifelessness is the people; they are lifeless. I shouldn’t be able to jump off a tall building and cause a mini-quake around me and people go “eh?”, they should run in terror. A bit of a major flaw there.

But I’m not going to say it’s all bad and this is the saving grace that will push me into reviewing this game finally.

Although we have a lot of lifeless and “dumb” people, there is a great sense of satifaction beating the crap out of the world. Thats right! To go rampaging in this game is great fun! Okay, you may not be able to destory building, start massive fires or such like, but to run around and beat the hell out of the people in the world is great fun; it’s like playing Grand Theft Auto and going postal on everybody. With moves that allow you to jump up high and then do a “body surf” (that allows you to use a body like a skateboard) is great fun. When the helicopters come in and stop you having fun, it’s then time to show who’s boss.

Really that is the core of the gameplay when you break the game down, is that this act of extreme violence to anybody without any game moral system setting in place makes it great fun. Its a slim part of the gameplay, but its great.

So the first impression isn’t great. Yes, nice graphics, but a not much diversity, and the poor pedestrian AI won’t lose you in the game, but the violence that will follow surely is the saving grace of the game. I think I can learn to love this game if I give it a good fighting chance, but to say that isn’t a great thing at all as any game should be fun from the word go, I shouldn’t have to search for it. This maybe a game for the more serious gamer rather than the mainstream.