Sunday, May 20, 2007

Zelda, the post-match analysis

Just finished playing Twilight Princess. So now I'm in the position of having nothing in the way of Wii games that can provide more than a few minutes distraction at best. I'm sure this is a problem that will begin to vanish as dev teams get more used to the system, and stop just putting out cheap ports of PS2 software (not so sure that'll happen any time soon, though).

I was a bit sceptical of Twilight Princess when I first started playing it. It's very slow to get going, and recycles previous parts of the series to an almost ludicrous extent, but it now sits just behindd ocarina of time in my estimations for the series. I do still love Wind Waker, especially the absolutely incredible design, but Twilight Princess just edges it out because of the relationships between the central characters. The character that fulfils the role of the guide in this game is Midna, a strange little imp-type creature. Initially she's pretty antagonistic towards Link, but gradually softens, and they start to depend on one another to a far greater degree. It's strongly reminiscent of the relationship between the central characters in His Dark Materials, in fact some of the parallels are out-and-out spooky. I'd be very suprised if His Dark Materials wasn't the basis for a lot of the story, but then I'm not sure it's ever been translated into Japanese.

It's rare that there's good story in games, even more rare in a case like this, where one character is essentially mute. There's a lot to be said for the character modelling here - they are fantastically expressive, Midna in particular.

Ah well, it's back to Wii tennis. I've never been particularly desperate to have story as the central focus of a game, but now that I've finished Twilight Princess, I find mysself even more keen for Mass Effect and Bioshock.

It seems that a cheeky member of HMV staff has the same love of Jack Thompson as I do:



Delightful.

Friday, May 18, 2007

I feel we've reached an accord...

According to this report the main cause of gun crime is, well, guess what? Guns.

Turns out the root causes of crime are the same sorts of things we always suspected, such as poverty, disaffected youth, all that jazz. But apparently, and this is the really shocking part, if you want to shoot someone you'll need a gun.

I know, I was shocked too. I've seen one of these 'gun' things, and I can't even see where you would put a copy of Grand Theft Auto in one.

Twats. Staggering twats.

This is the logical extension of the whole nonsensical Top Gear culture we have going on at the moment.

Cars are big and heavy, and if you drive them too fast, they're hard to control. Surely people realise this by now?

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

OMG M$ IS TEH SUXOR!

Sat here, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the Halo 3 beta to happen. Not much going on here. Just... waiting.

I thought I might pass the time by downloading the free Live Arcade game Microsoft have been touting. But that's not online either. Turns out it's only available in the states. Europe gets shat upon once again.

Never mind. I'll troll around for online petetions. Advanced old age is setting in at 26.

"Dear Sir, you suck. Yours sincerely, ZombieDave. p.s. Asshat."

My letters wil be the stuff of cranky old man legend.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

What I did in May.

Seems I don't spend as much time as I used to in front of my computer. I'm sure a large part of this is down to the fact that I'm working my way through a huge glut of games that were rushed out to meet the end of the fiscal year. A brief summary:

Zelda: Twilight Pricess - A wizard did it.

God of War 2 - A giant pituitary retard in a skirt did it.

Crackdown (with added bonus shiny) - A giant pituitary retard in a tank got of his tank and did it. With a harpoon gun.

So that's what I've been up to. Games now have harpoon guns in them, and I'm not looking back. It's all harpoon gun, all the time for me. This means I can only ever play Crackdown and XIII.

Slightly less appealing is the demo of the Pirates of the Caribbean game. Just as it was looking like a game being a movie tie-in didn't automatically mean it was shit, this comes along. And it all starts so well. A little in-engine cutscene, Captain Jack looks like Captain Jack, moves like a drunk everything seems fine. Then you take control.

Suddenly Jack moves like he has a broom in him (he might do, it's Johnny Depp after all), and you engage in some horrible, horrible combat. Here's how combat works:

You press 'A' twice. The enemy turns away. You press 'A' again. The enemy falls over. Then you get hit by an off-screen enemy because the camera is in no way dynamic. And you have no way of knowing how many enemies are in the room, because they spawn offf camera. So, unless you spin the camera continually, you don't really know what's going on.

There are some vague attempts to expand the combat, but they're all equally clumsy. It's a piece of shit, basically. It might be aimed at kids, but that's no excuse.

Oh, and captain Jack speaks twice in the 20-minute demo. I couldn't quite tell if it was Johnny Depp doing the voice, as it sounded like it was recorded down a phone line. In the seventies. I don't think it was though.

I don't quite know why this bothers me, as it's not as if I would have ever bought this game, but it has. To sum up: it's a piece of shit.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

It has come to my attention...

...that the country of my birth is being run by a homophobic religious demagogue and a man who believes violence to be a legitimate means of affecting change in government.

Who says Britain can't do US-style politics?